In a portrait of the city at once poignant and intimate, we find artistic witness to the customs, dialect, squalor, and beauty of the ancient imperial capital that has succumbed to modern warfare, marginalisation, and mass culture. The sketches portray the impoverished masses that Pasolini calls 'the sub-proletariat,' those who live under Third World conditions and for whom simple pleasures, such as a blue sweater in a storefront window, are completely out of reach.