La relatività generale: mezzo secolo di successi dopo una lunga fase di stanca

After a first period of successful observations, e.g. Eddington’s 1919 observation of the deviation of light in the gravitational field of the Sun, the interest in general relativity (GR) was low for many years. The foreseen effects were too small to be measured with available instruments. But around 1955, year of Einstein’s death, new research themes were proposed in a conference on relativity. Since then plentiful and extraordinarily precise evidence of the validity of GR was collected. The paper illustrates the historical process and the most recent experimental results.