1858, the Jewish quarter of Bologna. The Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the bourgeoisie Mortara family: by order of the cardinal, they have come to take six-year-old Edgardo to Rome. Unbeknownst to his parents Momolo and Marianna, Edgardo had been secretly baptised by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education, thus, his parents must either convert or lose him forever