In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope's soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education. Edgardo's parents, distraught, will do anything to get their son back. Supported by public opinion and the international Jewish community, the Mortaras' struggle quickly takes a political dimension. However, to consolidate an increasingly wavering power, the Church and the Pope will not agree to return the child.
"The kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara is a crime against a quiet, moderately well-to-do family, respectful of authority at a time when a wind of freedom was blowing over Europe, when liberal principles were beginning to assert themselves everywhere. The kidnapping of little Edgardo therefore symbolizes the desperate, ultra-violent will of a declining power that tries to resist its own collapse. Totalitarian regimes often have such upheavals which give them, for a short time only, the illusion of victory, a brief spasm before death." (Marco Bellocchio)