Genoa, Italy, 24th of January 1979. Red Brigades' member Roberto Dura is waiting with two other comrades for trade unionist leader and factory worker Guido Rossa to leave his home to go to work. Three months earlier, Rossa had denounced a work colleague, Francesco Berardi, because he was distributing Red Brigade flyers inside the factory. Berardi was arrested and, after a fast tracked trial, was convicted to four and a half years. ....

Elba island, 1814. Martino is a young teacher, idealist and strongly anti Napoleon, in love with the beautiful and noble Baroness Emily. The young man finds himself serving as librarian to the Great Emperor in exile, whom he deeply hates, yet soon begins recording Napoleon's memoirs, getting to know and learning to value the man behind the myth. Among seductions and affairs, expectations and fears, he will craft a precise portrait that nevertheless will not manage to hide a final, inevitable, disappointment.