The rich banker Rosen of Livorno fear that the Bonapartist will take all his gold, so he is hiding it inside a cuckoo clock.

Set in the Papal States in the first half of the 19th century, it tells the story of the Roman noblewoman Vanina Vanini and her secret love for the Carbonaro Pietro Mirilli. The latter, given his commitments in the underground struggle, decides to abandon his young lover, who is nevertheless willing to marry him. Left alone, Vanina is unable to escape her despair and tries in every way to reunite with her companion, even going so far as to denounce the Carbonari to the Cardinal of Romagna, naming them all except Pietro and revealing the hiding place where they meet. Pietro, learning of Vanina's betrayal, casts her out. Only then does Vanina realize the gravity of her actions and decides to join the Carbonari, even participating in combat operations, during one of which she is wounded. This brings the two young people closer together forever.

The well off daughter of a tenor breaks up a romance with a helpful youth from a misunderstanding. But she continues to cover him with his gambling debts despite her delicate health.

Anna, a woman with a troubled past, marries an honest worker at the SIMA mechanical workshop, who provides her with a decent life despite financial difficulties. Blackmailed by a man who knows about her past, Anna loses her mind and kills him. Sentenced to ten years in prison, she dies in childbirth while giving birth to a baby girl.

A captain, a well-known flying ace, is developing his own device which will make a notable contribution to the prestige of his country's air force. One evening he occasionally meets a girl who strikes him with her mysterious behavior. In fact, he witnesses some completely inexplicable events that disturb him and take away the necessary serenity of mind to attend to his work, from which he feels detached. An explosion in the laboratory brings to the attention of an entire espionage network that was working to prevent the realization of the project.