State buoni se potete (1983)

Rome, the second half of the sixteenth century. In a wealthy church, a petty thief named Cirifischio steals a precious gold ciborium, but the parish priest discovers him and the guards chase him. The boy slips into the workshop of the blacksmith Master Iacomo, who points him toward a nearby church where he can take refuge by asking for sanctuary. There, Cirifischio meets a young Florentine priest, Don Filippo Neri, who provides food and lodging in the church for children, pilgrims, and the poor. When the guards enter the church to arrest Cirifischio, Don Filippo arrives holding the ciborium and claims that he himself sent the boy to borrow it, saving him from the risk of a death sentence—the punishment prescribed at the time in the Papal States for sacrilegious theft. Grateful to the priest, the boy decides to join him in his Christian mission of gathering the city’s little orphans. To feed so many mouths, Don Filippo has to beg for a few hunks of bread for his children. One evening, his path crosses that of the young Cardinal Duke of Caprarola. In response to the priest’s pleas for alms, the wealthy prelate orders his henchmen to beat him, enraging Cirifischio, who swears revenge. The next day, together with Don Filippo’s other orphans, Cirifischio stops the Cardinal Duke’s pageboy to avenge the insult done to Don Filippo. But they discover that the page is actually a young girl, Leonetta, whom the Duke of Caprarola keeps with him to satisfy his sexual desires. Don Filippo takes her in. Cirifischio encounters the Duke again and throws a stone at his face, but the Duke’s guards arrest him. Don Filippo then goes to the Duke and, by means of a ruse, manages to take Cirifischio and Leonetta away. To ensure the girl receives a good education, Don Filippo decides to take her to the Jesuit schools, run by the Order’s founder, Father Ignatius of Loyola, a friend of his. Frightened by the Jesuits’ methods, Leonetta asks Cirifischio to help her. In league with Master Iacomo, Cirifischio tries to help her escape, but Father Ignatius and Don Filippo chase after him. Meanwhile, Don Filippo douses the blacksmith with a bucket of holy water, reducing him to ashes; Master Iacomo is, in fact, the personification of the Devil. The Jesuits catch Cirifischio and Leonetta and bring them before Father Ignatius, who nevertheless decides to let them go. Years later, Cirifischio and Leonetta, now adults and engaged, decide to marry, and Don Filippo prepares an engagement dinner for them, inviting high-ranking religious figures. However, following directions from the old woman who now occupies Master Iacomo’s shop, Cirifischio encounters the Duke of Caprarola again. Provoked, the young man kills him with a stab of his knife. The dinner is interrupted when Cirifischio confesses the crime to Leonetta and flees because he is wanted. Years later, after carrying out a mission on the Pope’s behalf, Don Filippo meets Leonetta, now a nun, and together they pray for Cirifischio’s redemption; he has become a bandit. Meanwhile, Ricciardetto, the son of a nobleman who attends Don Filippo’s oratory despite his father’s opposition, is lured by the Devil in the guise of a young dark-haired woman, the new tenant of the shop opposite Don Filippo’s church, and suddenly dies. In the room where the child’s body lies, he briefly comes back to life before the priest, asking forgiveness for having allowed himself to be tempted by the Devil, then falls asleep in God’s arms. Some time later, a bandit enters the oratory and asks Don Filippo to go to the ruins of the Church of Santa Maria to baptize a bandit’s son. Cirifischio is also present at the baptism, intending to meet Don Filippo because he is tired of living as a criminal. Once again, the Devil—now disguised as a sculptor—arranges for Don Filippo to meet a friar. On the way to the ruins, the priest discusses the state of affairs with him. Don Filippo criticizes the excessive reforms carried out by the new Pope, Sixtus V, unaware that the friar, who is out begging for alms, is actually the pontiff in disguise. Despite the criticism, the Pope greatly admires the Florentine priest’s teachings. During the baptism, Don Filippo meets Cirifischio and joyfully embraces him, but the Pope’s guards sneak in and arrest him. Cirifischio is sentenced to death, and the only way to save him is to appeal directly to Sixtus V. Before the pontiff, Don Filippo recognizes him as the friar he met a few days earlier. The Pope decides to make Don Filippo a cardinal so that he can become his spiritual adviser. Politely declining the appointment, Don Filippo asks the pontiff to release Cirifischio from prison, but Sixtus V refuses. The young man is to be executed a few days later, but not before learning from Don Filippo that he has been deceived by the Devil all his life, and managing to see his beloved Leonetta one last time. Back at his oratory, old and tired, Don Filippo continues devoting himself to his little orphans, finding joy in following God.