After his young lover, Gitone, leaves him for another man, Encolpio decides to kill himself, but a sudden earthquake destroys his home before he has a chance to do so. Now wandering around Rome in the time of Nero, Encolpio encounters one bizarre and surreal scene after another.

After unearthing an ancient bas-relief sculpture of the gradiva or ‘woman who walks’ a young archaeologist begins to dream of the figure eluding him, while also pursuing a mysterious woman who eludes him in his waking life. Based on the novella by Wilhelm Jensen.