Emma and Lucia grow up together in an orphanage and remain friends throughout adulthood. When Emma has to work away from home, she entrusts her daughter to Lucia. When she receives word that her daughter has died, she is desolate - but whose child did, actually, pass away?

Produced in Italy in breathtaking Technicolor, this biographical story of Puccini (played by L'avventura's Gabriele Ferzetti) spans his creative life from early student days to the height of success, including his early flop Madama Butterfly and his incomplete Turandot. Along the way he encounters three women who change his life, including a sexy, beautiful singer (Two for the Road's Nadia Gray) whom he drops for a small town girl (Sirocco's Marta Toren), and a servant girl who commits suicide over him. Well-selected excerpts from Manon, La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Turandot are featured along with other Puccini music, including the voice of Beniamino Gigli. Sets, costumes and production values are first class, all sumptuously filmed by Claude Renoir.

Carlo, a young doctor, occasionally meets Anna, the daughter of professor Valli. Carlo falls in love with Anna, who returns his feelings; but her father longs a brilliant marriage for her.

A story of the Second Punic Wars, beginning with Scipio's futile pleas to the Roman Senate to build an army to battle Hannibal, that climaxes with the battle of Zama.