Sicily, in the first half of the 18th Century. The island hesitates between barbarianism and liberty. Amongst the noble families of Palermo, the Ucrias slumber on in the respect of age-old tradition. Little Marianna is destined like her sisters to be married off or to become a nun. Yet Marianna is different : deaf and dumb, of exceptional intelligence, sensitive to every vibration in the world around her, an eternal round of marriages, balls, auto-da-dés, hangings and familial obscurantism. Forced, at the age of 13, to marry the old duke Pietro, her uncle, she becomes the young mother of three chidren. Marianna learns sign language with the help of a French tutor. Upon reading the new philosophers she becomes impassioned with their utopian ideas. She struggles against injustice and misery and affirms her feminity, identity and sensuality. In the face of repession and submission, of a terrible truth hidden from her since childhood, Marianna's stance is highly personal...