Set in fourteenth century Italy, the story is about the enmity between two princes, Visconti, the evil Duke of Milan and Mastino della Scala, the dispossessed Duke of Verona. The hatred of these two men is the haut basis of the plot, but the lyrical descriptions of Milan and the countryside and the almost unbelievable cruelty and black heartedness of the unscrupulous Visconti, help to make the impact of this story a really tremendous one.