Nanni Moretti recalls in his diary three slice of life stories characterized by a sharply ironic look: in the first one he wanders through a deserted Rome, in the second he visits a reclusive friend on an island, and in the last he has to grapple with an unknown illness.

Naples, 1959. Pure Mathematics professor Renato Caccioppoli, Bakunin's grandson, is a tortured soul. Recently discharged from the psychiatric hospital, left by his wife, and increasingly disillusioned with academia and the Communist Party, he lives his last days with painful detachment.