A number of different segments taken from 19th century Italian stories.

A film about twin bothers Jacob & Esau

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

An ambitious mobster plans an elaborate diamond heist while seducing the daughter-in-law of a ruthless mob patriarch as a determined police commissioner closes in on all of them.

Evelyne, a judge's young wife, falls in love with Rémy while vacationing in Italy. Upon returning home, she must decide between telling her husband and continuing to see Rémy.

Just before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, a party is held in the castle of the Stettin's Counts.

In the kingdom of Kindaor, traitor Sedesmondo kills his brother, the King of Kindaor, and becomes the tyrant of kingdom. He abandons the prince Arminio to beasts in the woods, but lions don't kill him and breed him as one of them.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and his Jewish companion Paul Ree meet a beautiful young Russian intellectual and draw her into a ménage-à-trois.

Nine episodes about life in Italy in the period just before its economic boom.