A man (Carmelo Bene) can not bear to be part of society. He considers himself a "jerk" and so invents its own philosophy, which involves the destruction of his land of Puglia where all citizens are devoted to the Catholic religion. However, the man can not destroy the belief of the pilgrims of Salento, because a woman would prevent that. It is an unknown "Santa Margherita", which tries to divert man from his weird and impossible philosophy. Successive scenes of the film show various situations unreal and dream in which the two protagonists try to obtain the best one on the other. After a blasphemous dialogue between monks, the man includes his whole philosophy in a Moorish building. In fact, this seems to have been the scene of the massacre of the famous 800 Martyrs of Otranto, which are considered by the scetic man the absolute death of Christianity.

Alla base di tutto c'è il ricordo di una strage compiuta dai turchi ad Otranto. Un ricordo ovviamente non personale, ma quasi genetico, visto che il protagonista è un intellettuale dei nostri giorni. Tra le sue visioni prendono posto ricordi infantili, colloqui immaginari e la presenza di una donna di nome Margherita (Lydia Mancinelli), ma che si annuncia sotto le spoglie di Santa Maria d'Otranto.