Ruffini was an Italian patriot who wished to secure British support for Italian Unification and wrote the work specifically to win over the British market to the cause.

It was first published in English in Edinburgh in 1855, and helped drive a boom in British tourism on the Ligurian coast and in the town of Bordighera in particular.

[1] A revolutionary battling against the rule of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies meets and falls in love with the daughter of an English aristocrat.

He eventually is compelled to give her up and return to fight and die for the cause of Italian unification.

In 1949 the story served as the basis of the libretto for Franco Alfano's last opera Doctor Antonio.