Naples, 1959. Pure Mathematics professor Renato Caccioppoli, Bakunin's grandson, is a tortured soul. Recently discharged from the psychiatric hospital, left by his wife, and increasingly disillusioned with academia and the Communist Party, he lives his last days with painful detachment.
1828. In the wake of the repression of revolutionary uprisings in the monarchist South, three young friends join Giuseppe Mazzini's patriotic cause, seeking to finally unify Italy under a republican government. Their idealism will clash with the inevitable disillusionment as they grow apart over the following fifty years.
