When 16-year-old Lucrezia de Medici marries the fifth Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d'Este, she imagines married life with her handsome husband will be idyllic. But little does she know that he is a very complicated man. The marriage is fraught with difficulties from the start and eventually Lucrezia decides to seek solace elsewhere. For Alfonso, the pressure mounts, for the Vatican is threatening to reclaim his title, should he and Lucrezia remain unable to produce an heir. He grows to resent his duchess and begins to plot an unthinkable way to escape his problems.