Lectures given during the 1999 session of the School of Pure and Applied Biophysics in Venice, Italy.

Includes bibliographical references and author index.

Introduction to spectroscopy / G. Giacometti -- Electronic absorption and resonance Raman spectroscopic of heme proteins / G. Smulevich -- Infrared spectroscopy : a tool in the structural investigations of macromolecules / V. Di Noto -- Fluorescence spectroscopy / N. Rosato, L. Stella and A. Di Venere -- Comparisons between time-resolved fluorescence experiments and computer simulations / L. Stella -- ESR or biological systems : applications to photosynthesis / D. Carbonera -- Electron spin echo envelope modulation spectroscopy in the study of biological systems / L. Bubacco -- Structural dynamics of proteins studied by NMR : basic princeples / R. Br?ler -- Transient optical spectroscopy / E.E. Di Iorio -- Motions in biomolecules : comparing simulation with experiment / J.C. Smith -- Small-angle X-ray scattering by solutions of biological macromolecules / P. Vachette and D. Svergun -- A general introduction to molecular dynamics simulations / E.E. Di Iorio -- Constrained and nonequilibrium molecular dynamics / G. Ciccotti and M. Ferrario -- Structural dynamics investigations of proteins by EPR spectroscopy and MD and BD simulations / M. Iovino and A Desideri -- A short introduction to stochastic dynamics simulations on biopolymers / G. Chirico.