Pasquale Grifone, who lives in Naples with his family, receives in a dream the visit of Dante Alighieri. The poet suggests to the man, clouded by the fumes of alcohol, four numbers to play.

Gennarino is a Neapolitan orphan boy. He lives with Angela, his adoptive mother, a former famous singer now fallen on hard times. She has a serious illness, and they together try to get the money, necessary for her right care, by singing around. But one day Angela is obliged by the illness to stop her activity, and Gennarino decides to join a pilferers gang.

Filumena Marturano is a former prostitute who has been living for years with Domenico Soriano, a wealthy Neapolitan pastry chef who was once her client. To force Soriano into marriage, the woman pretends to be dying in order to invoke a "deathbed" wedding, but the charade fails and Don Domenico tries everything he can to annul the sacrament. Filumena is forced to come clean.

Antonio Barracano is an old Camorra member who administers justice according to his own unique criteria. Magnanimous and tough, severe and affectionate, he is recognized as the 'mayor' by all the dispossessed of the Sanità district. His particular brand of justice towards the poor leads him to sacrifice his own life in order to solve the financial problems of Rafiluccio and Rita, a couple expecting a child and overwhelmed by debt.

Two local toughs run a ramshackle gambling and dating den under the cover of a "hunting club." The place is frequented by all sorts of characters, from the upper crust of Naples to petty criminals who use it as a base of operations, and the noise is such that it won't take much to blow their cover.

Oreste Campese is the leader of a traveling troupe of actors—made up of his family—who find themselves in the middle of winter in an unspecified town in central Italy. During the prologue, Campese recounts the events leading up to the present: the troupe has suffered the misfortune of losing their "shed," a mobile theater structure that was destroyed by an accidental fire. The flames spared only the boxes of props and costumes, which were opportunely saved.

Sofia, Don Saverio's sister, confesses to her brother that she was the victim of a fateful event: while she accompanied her brother to Rome, while he was resting at a hotel, a terrible storm broke out during the night, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Frightened, she left her room to seek refuge in her brother's, when, after the lights went out, she accidentally entered a stranger's room in the darkness and fainted from fear of a violent clap of thunder. The unknown individual seized the opportunity and took advantage of her. From that turbulent encounter, Don Felice Sciosciammocca was born, Sofia's illegitimate son, now engaged to Marietta, Don Saverio's daughter.

Michele, recently released from the asylum, returns home where his sister Teresa, the only one who knows about his past madness, is waiting for him.

Happy Sciosciammocca has a double life: he plays sacred music in the convent of Rondinelle and teaches music to the educators, at night he goes to Naples where he is known as the actor.