Once one of Italy's most promising young talents, the years have not treated artist Tullio d'Attore's career kindly, his admiration for the art of the early Renaissance bringing him, not the breath of artistic inspiration, but, instead, a devoted following of tourists, for whom he acts as guide. As another Tuscan summer begins, Tullio's friends in the world of art criticism, plan to revive his work, but then a strange young man, Giuliano Amadei, takes an apartment in the seventeenth century Palazzo Lanzi where Tullio lives with his wife, Claudia - and begins to paint her, magnificently. To the sound of Giuliano's cello playing, which pervades the palazzo, Tullio's story must be played out to its dramatic and surprising end.