Born in 1932, Giovanni Finzi-Contini is both a distinguished geophysicist and prize-winning poet and novelist. In this, his first published novel, he imaginatively reconstructs the history of his maternal grandfather's family in Ferrara from the emancipation of the Jews in newly united Italy to Fascist anti-Semitic persecution and the second world war. The elderly and frail Alberto Minerbi, who has escaped from a Fascist prison, is transported across Bologna on a cart, disguised as an old woman. As he goes, he recalls key episodes from his and his family's past in a series of vivid cinematic flashbacks, finally achieving peace of mind before his death.