This is the tale of a meeting between Lazzaro, a young peasant so good that he is often mistaken for simple-minded, and Tancredi, a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Life in their isolated pastoral village Inviolata is dominated by the terrible Marchesa Alfonsina de Luna, the queen of cigarettes. A loyal bond is sealed when Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him orchestrate his own kidnapping. This strange, improbable alliance is a revelation for Lazzaro--a friendship so precious that it will travel in time and transport Lazzaro in search of Tancredi. In the big city for the first time, Lazzaro is like a fragment of the past lost in the modern world.