An old-fashioned trader, an old uncle with a past, a young capricious bride, an ironical intellectual, a reactionary land-lord, an oppressed son who rebels. Five men and a women, belonging to the aristocratic Bracci Cambini family of Pisa, between the beginning of the 18^th century and the middle of the 19^th century tell their own life. Their passions and their conflicts provide the living illustration of the history of a family and of private life, through the description of individual characters. The great themes of the confrontation between the authoritative Ancien Regime family and the more modern family based on the rights and feelings of its members: the defence of the patrimony and the lustre of the aristocratic houses, the dictatorship of primogeniture and the rebellion of the younger sons and of the females with their private aspirations. The saga of a family and also the documented historical research which captures the interest of the reader.