Three characters' misadventures in semi-deserted, summertime Rome: a dim-witted mama's boy falls for a tourist; a would-be womanizer struggles to find company for his sex tourism trip to Kraków; a hippie is drawn into his father's schemes to bring him back into polite society.
Broke, and armed only with his sense of humor, middle-aged Gianni lives with his mother in their old apartment. The debts are mounting, but if Gianni looks after the building manager's mother during the Ferragosto, a mid-August holiday, all will be forgiven.
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.