I will discuss current ideas about the formation and evolution of massive
galaxies and their central supermassive black holes.  Many of these
theories have been strongly influenced by the latest generation of
numerical simulations, which are a powerful tool in helping us understand
how galaxies evolve in merger events and how black holes (significantly)
affect the properties of merger remnants.  While mergers of gas-rich disk
galaxies are thought to lead to the formation of elliptical galaxies,
recent observational evidence suggests that merging of (gas-poor)
elliptical galaxies is also an important process for galaxy evolution and for
building up the most massive galaxies in the universe.  I will present
results of simulations of these mergers and argue that the filamentary
nature of large scale structure plays an important role in producing some
observed properties of massive elliptical galaxies.  These results also have
important implications for the masses of the most massive black holes in
the universe: I will suggest that standard estimates are likely too low,
perhaps by up to a factor of three.