Fantaghirò, also known as The Cave of the Golden Rose (La Grotta della Rosa d'Oro), is an Italian fantasy romance adventure series consisting of five television films directed by Lamberto Bava and released between 1991 and 1996.

The first film was originally based on Italo Calvino's "Fanta-Ghiro the Beautiful", and takes place in a fairy tale setting, featuring princesses, princes, witches, wizards and talking animals.

Shot mostly in the Czech Republic and Slovakia with the participation of local actors, and highly popular in Italy during the 1990s, it was loosely adapted into a cartoon series of the same title.

Although beautiful and intelligent, she causes many problems for her family because she goes against everything expected of a woman in her kingdom, by being literate, adventurous, and rebellious; this makes her father furious.

The witch is about to execute the captured Fantaghirò when the princess is suddenly sucked into an alternative reality where she has to join forces with a scoundrel named Aries in defeating a child-eating monstrous villain known as the Nameless.

In the first film, she is an impulsive troublemaker who grew up fascinated by weapons and adventure and who likes to provoke her father and sisters, but underneath it, she has a good heart.

She is deeply in love with Romualdo, previously the enemy prince and their kingdoms are now finally at peace thanks to Fantaghirò, who briefly vows to put down her sword forever.

[10] In the third film, he is turned into a statue whilst fighting Tarabas' men and is only revived near the end of the movie, when the pair are finally married.

In the fourth film, Stuart did not want to return for the role,[8] so Romualdo was transformed into the hideously ugly Fiodor, portrayed by Riccardo Serventi Longhi.

She is introduced in the second film as the vain and cruel ruler of the faraway Dark Kingdom who plots to destroy Fantaghirò and Romualdo's pure romantic relationship.

Director Lamberto Bava said that otherwise, she looked just as he and the screenwriter imagined her: "gigantic (between heels and helmet she reaches two meters), beautiful, with all the sexy power that transpires from her costume's abysmal slit and generous décolleté.

[9] According to the Italian Wired in 2017, she was one of the reasons for the series' popularity in the country, described as "a unique and memorable character ... a majestic monument of irrational evil, busty and very tall, with heavy make-up and strictly black and skimpy dresses, the wicked queen is the ultimate glamorous incarnation of any fairy tale villain.

[10] He is initially a very powerful villain who is feared by magicians in every kingdom, but he discovers a prophecy that a royal child no older than ten years shall defeat him.

Tarabas becomes obsessed with learning how he will be defeated and sends his men to kidnap all royal children, during which the parents of young Princess Esmeralda are killed.

He crosses paths with Fantaghirò and falls madly in love with her, eventually asking her to marry him in exchange for reviving Romualdo, whom he has been turned into stone.

He then redeems himself with Esmeralda by allowing her to see her parents one last time, an act of kindness which fulfils the prophecy of his dark powers' downfall.

Tarabas renounces his evil ways and lives in peace until the fourth film when he is accused of creating a destructive black cloud consuming all in its path.

The series' premise is based on Italo Calvino's "Fanta-Ghiro the Beautiful", a short story inspired by a Tuscan folk tale from the late 19th century.

[1] The musical score, including the theme song "Mio nemico" ("My Enemy"), was written by Amedeo Minghi and performed by Rossana Casale.

[22] Brigitte Nielsen's role as the Black Witch was received so well by the public that Bava decided to revive her killed-off character for three successive chapters of the saga.

[1] The series has been shown in more than 50 countries[24] and was dubbed in several languages, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, English, French, Polish, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Russian, Georgian and Sinhala.

[31] The sixth and seventh films in the series were never realized due to a dramatic decline of audience recorded during the airing of Fantaghirò 5 on Christmas 1996, and so the project was shelved.

Martines, Nielsen and Rogers confirmed their availability, but the project never came to fruition due to difficulties in co-production and the costs being deemed too high for its realization.