the dipole anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), was investigated as responsible of at least a fraction of the Local Group acceleration [@SBC89; @R89; @PV91; @QRM95; @KME04; @FKK13 and references therein]. To assess the role of this structure in the acceleration of the Local Group a robust estimate of its mass is required. This gave a boost to spectroscopic and X-ray observations of the supercluster devoted to i) map the whole structure and measure the density contrast in galaxy number counts and mass/number of associated clusters; ii) investigate its dynamical state and iii) derive the underlying mass distribution. A detailed review of the properties of the Shapley supercluster based on previous investigations will be given elsewhere (Merluzzi et al., in preparation), here we will describe the key characteristics of the SSC - i.e. those features making the SSC, and above all its central region, [*a magnifying glass*]{} to investigate the effect of the environment and mass assembly on galaxy evolution.

Supercluster morphology and dynamics
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By analysing a spectroscopic sample across a region of 15deg in diameter centred on the dominant cluster A3558, @QRM95 concluded that the supercluster has a ‘cigar-shape with the eastern side being the closest to 