While Arturo tries to gain the love of Flora, he witnesses the history of Sicily from 1969 to 1992, miraculously dodging the crimes of the Mafia and supporting as a journalist the heroic struggle of the judges and policemen who fought this infamous organization.

While looking for new tenants for his seaside villa, surrounded by a big garden, Andrea Ricoli, a 50-years old architect, meets Rossana, a newly 40-years old, anaesthesiologist at the local hospital, and married to Riccardo, ten years younger than her: he's an aspiring writer, temporarily employed as a salesman at a local shoe store. During an eventful New Year's Eve, Andrea introduces Riccardo to a Maghreb restaurant owner - who is interested in restoring an attic apartment - and his lovely sister Hikma. Months go by. Andrea discovers that Hikma is pregnant with Riccardo's child, while she's struggling with her old-fashioned, fundamentalist brother's mentality. He offers to help the couple and let them stay with him in his villa. Teaching him how to care for his garden, the young Hikma reminds Andrea of his wife Sofia, who passed away right there four years earlier, in unclear circumstances...

It's 1943 and World War II is raging in Europe. In New York, Arturo and Flora the daughter of a restaurant owner are in love, but she is promised in marriage to the son of a Mafia boss. There is a way around this, but to be able to marry Flora, Arturo needs to get permission from her father, who lives in a village in Sicily. Arturo doesn't have any money, so the only way he can get to Sicily is to enlist in the U.S. Army, which is preparing for a landing on the island.

It is Christmas 1908 in Messina, one of the richest merchant cities of the Mediterranean. Peter, the 13 year-old son of a rich English family is notorious for his cruelty to children, animals and servants. One night he is ambushed and wakes up in a coffin underground in the city's Gothic cemetery, buried in retaliation for his callousness by a servant boy from his mother's estate. When a powerful earthquake razes Messina to the ground, Peter is trapped and his whereabouts are forgotten. Until a century later an English archaeologist and his daughter arrive in the city.

January 6, 1980. President of the Sicily Piersanti Mattarella is going to Mass with his family when a young man approaches his car and shoots him in cold blood, killing him. The young Deputy Prosecutor on duty that day is Pietro Grasso, future General Anti-Mafia Prosecutor and President of the Italian Senate. His investigations are continued by Giovanni Falcone, who uncovers dangerous connections between the Mafia, the ruling Christian Democratic Party, neo-fascist terrorists, and secret services.

Although Pippo Genuardi seems to have cleared his mind by marrying Taninè Schilirò, daughter of the richest man in Vigàta, he is in fact someone who is not satisfied with his life…