1858. Across Europe, the wind of freedom is blowing — but in Bologna, the Pope's royal authority still reigns. In the city’s Jewish quarter, an unthinkable event unfolds: papal soldiers storm into the home of a local couple. It turns out their seven-year-old son had been secretly baptized as an infant by a household maid, and under papal law, the child must be taken to be raised as a Catholic. The boy is thrust into the center of a growing conflict that quickly takes on political dimensions. On one side: the outraged parents and the international Jewish community; on the other: the Papal State, determined to assert its power at any cost.