[4] The film is a tragic romance set in Florence in 1348, just before the first outbreaks in Italy of the Black Death, which then spread out across the entire continent.

A cardinal fears that her beauty could rival the church's power, and orders inquiries to be made about her Christian beliefs.

Excess and manslaughter continue uninterrupted until the arrival of a ragged female figure personifying the Plague, who infects the whole city with her deadly disease and plays the fiddle while the population dies in droves.

[6] Éclair, like all other foreign-owned firms, was banned in Germany from the start of WWI and their assets (such as equipment, leases on studios, offices, etc.)

The latter company was originally formed by Jules Greenbaum in 1899, sold to Carl Moritz Schleussner in 1908,[7] and moved to the Babelsberg studios in 1911.

[8] The imposing, crowd-filled, exterior sets of mediaeval Florentine architecture including the Medici Palace[9] were designed by the architect Franz Jaffe (1855-1937), previously royal buildings advisor to the King of Prussia.

Cameraman Hameister had also previously worked on the hugely successful film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, released earlier that year.