Acclaimed as the most significant Italian composer of the mid-20th century (along with Luigi Dallapiccola), Goffredo Petrassi was born in Zagarolo in 1904, the son of Elissio and Erminia Petrassi. He didn't begin scoring Italian documentary films until the 1940s; unfortunately, his massive output of classical works and teaching commitments left time to score only ten movies (six features and four shorts).

Petrassi rather regretted this meagre output and called his work for the cinema "un amore non corrisposto," an unrequited love. His film scores became something of a rare treat for cinema-goers, particularly the memorable feature scores. The four rarely-seen shorts were entitled, for the record, Musica nel Tempo (1941), Creazione del Mondo (1947), Lezione di Geometria (1948) and La Porta di San Pietro di Giacomo Manzu (1964).

Although Petrassi lived to 98, his output stopped some 20 years before, and sadly for the last 10 years of his life he was essentially blind.