What can ordinary men do when violence seizes power? What is the place, role and function of the intellectual and the artist in a society in crisis? In his private diary, Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli describes the trajectory of a “mediocre man” – as he defines himself – contemplating, in despair, the collapse of a society caught in the trap of fascism. In a twist of fate, one day he finds himself requisitioned to serve as guide to two supermen of his era – Hitler and Mussolini.