CP Violation and the Cathedral Builders' Paradigm

Pointing out the profound and unique nature of CP violation, I sketch its basic phenomenology, its CKM prescription and QCD technologies relevant for heavy flavour physics. After emphasizing the paradigmatic character of the establishment of direct CP violation I turn to the future, namely indirect searches for New Physics in electric dipole moments, $K_{\mu 3}$ decays and charm transitions on one hand and in beauty decays on the other; these are described as exciting adventures with novel challenges not encountered before.