December 1816. Enter, stage right, the 33-year-old writer Henri Beyle (later known as Stendhal) who stops at Terracina on his way from Rome to Naples. Enter, stage left, the 24-year-old composer Gioacchino Rossini, on his way from Naples to Rome, who halts at the same border town (then on the edge of the Kingdom of Naples). In center stage is an inn and a palace. Also center stage are an exiled aristocrat, his flighty wife and his overly melancholic female cousin.