The two wandering minstrels Pippo (Vittorio Gassman) and Peppe (Philippe Noiret) have long been favorites in their Roman neighborhood, each separately contributing a musical accompaniment to the lives of its inhabitants. During a critical time some months previously, they had both had relations with the same woman. Tragically, she has just died in childbirth. The resulting baby boy belongs to one of them, but no one can decide who. At first prepared to fight over the boy's paternity (simultaneously dividing the neighborhood into factions), they agree to raise the boy together and call him Piripicchio. Over the following years, they lovingly teach him everything they know. However, when he reaches adulthood, like many before him, he shuns their ways and their world.