In a city-state kwn for magnificence, where love affairs and conspiracies play out amidst brilliant painters, poets and musicians, the powerful and ambitious Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, takes a new bride. Half of Europe is certain he murdered his first wife, Lucrezia, the lumius child of the Medici. But one dares accuse him and one has proof - least of all his second duchess, the far less beautiful but delightfully clever Barbara of Austria.