The venture is financed by Commendator Vimercate, who owns a television channel, a dozen magazines and runs a chain of hotels and rest homes.

The declared aim of the newspaper is to reveal the truth about everything, to publish all the news that's fit to print "plus a little more," but Commendator Vimercate's true interest lies elsewhere.

He has a theory that Mussolini managed to avoid being killed during the last days of World War II—the corpse strung up in Milan was a double, the real Mussolini was smuggled away by Church authorities and spent his final years in Argentina (or perhaps behind the walls of the Vatican) waiting for a Fascist coup that might restore him to power.

At the same time, Colonna starts a romantic relationship with Maia, who is a smart and sharp-witted but eccentric young woman, and Braggadocio suspects she may have autism.

Eco's plot is woven around a succession of events from the final days of the Second World War to the terrorist attacks of the 1970s, with references to many figures from the past seventy years of Italian history: fascists and partisans, presidents and prime ministers (Aldo Moro, Francesco Cossiga, Giulio Andreotti), popes (John Paul I and John Paul II), bankers (Michele Sindona, Roberto Calvi, Cardinal Marcinkus) and secret organizations (Special Operations Executive, CIA, Operation Gladio and the Red Brigades).