Adriano's father has decided to leave him the factory, but Adriano is not so sure about that. Adriano is still very much in love with Paola after two years apart.

The story of Adriano Olivetti and his development of the family business, which expanded from typewriters to computers. This first segment shows CIA officers who consider Olivetti's electronic brain a great threat to American business. The segment also features a flashback to Adriano's childhood in Ivrea, when he was not too eager to learn the ropes.

The segment focuses on Messalina, wife of the Emperor Claudius, who owned a villa on the site of Villa Medici. We catch a glimpse of tunnels and rooms beneath the villa, which were used by Ferdinando de' Medici to imprison Asian slaves when they weren't at work on a garden meant to evoke Mount Parnassus.