Promptly abducted by the latter, Fulvio is put on trial until they find out that their missing Master committed suicide days earlier, disheartened by the seemingly-final defeat of revolutionary ideals.

Learning that the expedition is still going, Fulvio offers to buy himself the needed guns with Charlotte's money, with which he actually plans to escape to America along with a newly reunited Massimiliano, but first he has to get rid of Brothers Lionello and her partner Francesca.

Fulvio seduces Francesca to avoid being denounced to the Brothers and, after placing Massimiliano in a boarding school and using the money to pay years of rent in the case of his death, self-injures to simulate a robbery.

After the Brothers decide to proceed with the expedition even without guns, an increasingly frantic Fulvio finds out that Vanni is infamous in Sicily for exacting revenge on many soldiers and fellow countrymen.

Fulvio is dismissive, but, after hearing Grottole's bells ringing, he believes the Brothers succeeded and wears the red shirt that Allonsanfàn left behind to join them, thus being noticed and shot dead by newly arrived soldiers.

[5] It has been noted that the events of the film mirror the ill-fated 1857 revolutionary expedition led by Carlo Pisacane, while the surname of the main character is an homage to the Italian author of the period Vittorio Imbriani [it].

[3] The first version of the screenplay ended with Fulvio choosing not to betray his companions, surviving and coming back to bury them; the change was caused by the Tavianis' disillusionment with the outcome of May 1968.

[5][7] Mastroianni accepted the role of Fulvio since he perceived it as "the typical antihero character I enjoy playing" and wanted to return to work in Italy after shooting A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973) in Paris.

[14] The score was composed by Ennio Morricone and directed by Bruno Nicolai, with chorus by Alessandro Alessandroni's I Cantori Moderni [it] and solo violin by Giorgio Mönch.