Umberto Scalpellini

Early Italian Science-Fiction film.

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.

Hoping to please her, some children give their grandmother an electric lamp for her birthday, but the elderly lady does not intend to put the old oil lamp in the attic and tells the young people that the object has a huge value for her.

Maude, engaged to a doctor, was adopted years earlier by the president of an anti-alcoholic league. A Gypsy violinist falls in love with her, who, after having kidnapped and immobilized the girl's boyfriend, takes her to a villa and, to try to make her give in to his coaxing, has some gypsies offer her champagne.

In ancient times Rome looked upon Carthage as her greatest rival, and determined to plan her downfall. Cato, a Roman Senator, appealed to the Senate to conquer Carthage, and under a pretext that she had failed to keep faith, the Romans began a new war. The Roman army embarked for Africa and landed near Carthage.