La Signora delle Camelie chronicles the tragic love story of courtesan Marguerite Gautier and provincial bourgeois Armand Duval. Armand’s father disapproves of the relationship and convinces Marguerite to leave Armand, making him believe that she has left him for another man.

In Renaissance Florence, a Florentine trader meets a shipwrecked stranger, who introduces himself as Tito Melema, a young Italianate-Greek scholar. Tito becomes acquainted with several other Florentines, including Nello the barber and a young girl named Tessa. He is also introduced to a blind scholar named Bardo de' Bardi, and his daughter Romola. As Tito becomes settled in Florence, assisting Bardo with classical studies, he falls in love with Romola.