On the cohomology of some exceptional symmetric spaces

This is a survey on the construction of a canonical or "octonionic Kaehler" 8-form, representing one of the generators of the cohomology of the four Cayley-Rosenfeld projective planes. The construction, in terms of the associated even Clifford structures, draws a parallel with that of the quaternion Kaehler 4-form. We point out how these notions allow to describe the primitive Betti numbers with respect to different even Clifford structures, on most of the exceptional symmetric spaces of compact type.