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.