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.

Thanks to the legacy of an English lord, the cobbler Andrea has become a baron and now has delusions of nobility: he wants a high-ranking marriage for his stepdaughter Virginia and does not recognize the brothers of his wife, Rosina and Michele, even after the latter has saved the his house from a fire. Virginia does not like her promised Marchese Alberto, but Felice Sciosciammocca, a shy and poor master of calligraphy, who reciprocates her. But when Felice learns that the girl will soon marry another, out of spite he accepts the court of the late Marquise Zoccola, Alberto's mother.

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.

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.