The Duke Marco visits to his country side estate after many years absence. His farmers wants him to stay and run the place while his lover wants him to sell it. All while a farmers daughter also enters his life.

A bankrupt aristocrat tries to keep up appearances while his situation worsens. To top it off the life savings given to him by a beggar to invest has been mistakenly claimed by the aristocrat's altruist society for their annual Feast of the Poor.

A crime novel writer is experiencing writer's block while writing his latest book. Then a woman is murdered in his home, and this crime gives him inspiration to finish his novel. Without noticing, he even founds the real culprit.

The story is the harried attempt of a Sicilian partisan, as part of the risorgimento, to reach Garibaldi's headquarters in Northern Italy, and to petition the revered revolutionary to rescue part of his besieged land. Along the way, the peasant hero encounters many colorful Italians, differing in class and age, and holding political opinions of every type. There is a key train scene, and the film ends on the battlefield, Italian unification a success, despite brutal losses.