Paolo, an Anglo-Italian writer, has been invited to work on the memoirs of a renowned Englishman, Julius Aventinus, a Renaissance art historian. In order to facilitate the work, Julius invites Paolo and his French wife, Sylvie, to stay with him and his family in his Medici villa, near Florence.

While Paolo works in the library all day long, Sylvie, has nothing to do and is bored. As revenge for being left out by Julius of his after-dinner academic conversations on Renaissance art with Paolo, she decides to turn the tables on them both.

In the meantime, she acquires an extensive knowledge of the nuances of the English language by listening to its sophisticated use in the form of metaphors, academic terminology, allusions, dry wit, shaggy-dog stories, and idioms, to name but a few.