Based on the famous historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni, and set between 1628 and 1630 in Lombardy, Northern Italy, during the Spanish domination, the film displays the marriage between two young textile workers, Renzo and Lucia. The 1922 version is one of the most ambitious and spectacular films in all Italian silent cinema, with remarkable mass scenes and some images that sparked controversy.

A Venetian girl falls in love with a poet. But the latter is too cynical and boastful to bother to reply to the young girl's passionate letter and instructs his secretary, a shy dreamer, to keep the exchange of letters alive. From this intertwining of letters, a tender love is born between the girl and the secretary.

The beautiful Thaïs Galitzy plays Vera, a Slavic countess, a seductress who drags married men to the brink of ruin. When she seduces the husband of her best friend, all involved meet a nasty fate.

Madeleine is a beautiful married woman, hopelessly attracted to her former lover, Jacques. This obsession leads to the destruction of her life and eventually drives her to suicide, while her husband goes insane.