In 18th-century Rome, impish aristocrat Onofrio del Grillo amuses himself by playing pranks on all sorts of people — his reactionary family and fellow nobles, the poors, the French occupiers trying to modernize society, and even the Pope himself.
A collection of dark-humoured vignettes, including tales of a cardinal with a liberal congregation, a motorist and a hitchhiker, mentally challenged tramps, parents contemplating their daughter's participation in a pornographic film, and a conniving husband.
In this winsome comedy, an entitled Economics professor pursues a tactic to buy an ailing widow’s mansion for nothing, but he quickly realizes that his seemingly foolproof strategy won’t be as easy as he thought.
The film is about an old fashioned Italian with moral values of the 1930/40's , who has to find a wife in the modern, woman's liberated society of Australia of the 1960/70's.