Plot Summary

1912. Giovanni Pascoli has died, and a train leaves from Bologna for his funeral. On board, students, officials, and family, including his sister Maria, called Mariù. It is a journey of national mourning, with people from all social classes paying homage to the poet. In Mariù’s recollections, we learn how Giovanni lived: his father’s assassination, his poverty as a youth, his political activism and fraught ties to Giosuè Carducci.