During the Middle Ages, a traveling executioner hires an apprentice to learn the finer points of torture and execution, and a young girl is given by her parents to a Catholic convent.

The life of Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) from his arrival on Sicily's shores via shipwreck in 1221 to his death. He's a Portuguese monk who, once in Italy, seeks out St. Francis. Anthony's gift as a great preacher is discovered by happenstance. He spends much of his life in and near Padua, a city run by usurers. Anthony offers protection and friendship to Folco, at one time a petty criminal and acolyte to the usurers, later falsely accused of murder. Anthony's teaching and his spiritual strength lead to changes in the character of Padua and an end to usury. He became its patron Saint soon after his death, and 32 years later, his casket is opened and his tongue remains intact.

Zurich, 1905. Nineteen-year-old Russian Sabina Spielrein is put by her parents in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from a severe form of hysteria and refusing to eat. A compassionate doctor, Carl Gustav Jung, takes her under his care and, for the first time, experiments with the psychoanalytical method of his teacher Sigmund Freud. Thus is born a sweeping story of love and passion, of body and soul, soaring to the utmost heights, but also plunging to the darkest depths of the 20th century.

An American film-star and an unknown British actress meet on set in Rome. She is angry when he refuses to speak to her journalist father, but later they have a passionate relationship.

During the invasion of Ethiopia in 1936, a wounded Italian soldier ends up stranded in the desert after a truck wreck. He makes his way to the nearest army hospital, losing his sanity in the process.

A young Roman woman during the 1950s is on the verge of becoming engaged to a man. She goes to Cinecittà to do an audition as an extra and is thrust into this almost infinite night during which she discovers herself.

The enthusiasms, fears, joys and disappointments of the (private and professional) life of a well-known group of boys fond of physics and mathematics, who just made history as the Via Panisperna boys.

Saint Peter, a reluctant but passionate leader, from the crucifixion of Jesus to his own. The film's first half dramatizes the New Testament's "Acts": early fear, the renewal of Pentecost, Saul's conversion, the decision to baptize pagans, and the Apostles' dispersal. In the second half, an aged Peter goes to Rome to join Paul, arriving on the day of Paul's arrest. Paul's death brings a crisis to Rome's Christians and to Peter; lessons from Jesus's teachings guide his decision to stay. Events within the fictive household of Persius, a Roman aristocrat, capture the upheaval that Christian teachings bring to the Eternal City.

Piedmont (Italy), nineteenth century. In Turin, the priest Don Bosco, a man from a humble farming family, he gave himself totally and passionately to the task of collecting from the streets to marginalized children and care for them. Not only out of poverty, ignorance and social distress, but it got for the first time, to feel loved. He fought with extraordinary faith and tenacity to overcome obstacles and snares that both the civilian and ecclesiastical authorities, they put in their path to prevent him from completing his goal: the founding of the Congregation of the Salesians, which would guarantee the future of their children .