Giancarlo Martini

The Crusades reign supreme. Joachim's habit has become like a second skin. Shrouded in the darkness of the world, his life intertwines with dreamlike experiences and mystical visions. A river of oil unfolds before his eyes. The ascetic receives a divine revelation—prophecies and visions that only his heart can unveil. His final endeavor is humanity's greatest challenge: overcoming the apocalypse. A journey through hope, life beyond life, the values of existence—the search for the divine within every living being—the power of love.

Rome, summer 1943. Four children play war while the bombs of real war explode around them. Italo is the rich son of the Federal, Cosimo has his father in confinement and an atavistic hunger, Vanda is an orphan and a believer, Riccardo comes from a wealthy Jewish family. They are different but they don't know it and between them "the greatest friendship in the world" is born, impervious to the divisions of history that bloodies Europe. But on October 16 the Jewish boy is taken away by the Germans together with over a thousand people from the Ghetto. Thanks to Italo's father Federale, the three friends believe they know where he is and, to honor the "spit pact", decide to leave in secret to convince the Germans to free their friend. Yet another imaginative mission becomes reality, the three children travel alone in an Italy exhausted by war, among disbanded soldiers, deserters, occupying German troops, exhausted and hungry populations.

Four super-powered circus freaks find themselves trapped in war-torn Rome after their foster father is captured by the Nazis.