During a transfer by sea following a riot, he is approached by a neighboring politician, the baron of Vistacorta, in prison, in turn, for a fraudulent contract on the construction of the bridge over the Strait of Messina, who instructs him to keep him a precious cartridge case containing a considerable sum of money.

After a failed escape attempt to Naples, Farfallon is hidden by the Trappistine nuns who, in exchange, ask him to teach them the secrets of Sicilian pastry, only to betray him by handing him over to the Swiss Guards of the Vatican.

The two therefore go through a period of hard work and various humiliations, culminating in a detention of eight years in a prison cell due to a simulated attempted rape by the director's wife and sister-in-law.

Upon exiting the penalty cell, they are approached by a strange inmate named Leonardo, fascinated by the idea of reproducing the flight of birds for humans, who proposes to the two to test wings built by himself.

Farfallon is the first to launch himself from the cliff and falls tumbling into the water, remaining miraculously unharmed, verifying, in fact, the failure of the invention; the Baron, consequently, prefers not to jump.