History repeats itself, so they say. Perhaps it has to because no-one listens! Ellie, an artist in her middle age, needs to live her life in a new way after the death of her husband. Feeling fearful but doing it anyway, she enrolls on a garden course in Tuscany one spring. Here she begins relationships with fellow students Nerine - an eccentric character in her seventies - and the much younger Max. Through the teaching of Salvatore - the owner of an ancient palazzo - Ellie comes to find that the universal truths, expressed in the Renaissance painting Primavera and the philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, still hold a potent relevance.