On a tiny piazza in an obscure Italian hilltop town, circa 1933, remarkable things are happening. From the window of his mother's bakery a young boy, Niccol?, sees it all: a pickpocket who purloins human emotions; a beggar who summons the voice of God from the town well; two young lovers whose passion changes history; a blind silent-movie accompanist. An exotic princess held captive in the local nunnery, a blackshirt bent on revenge and, hovering...