Francesco Ciancamerla

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.

Astrea plays an adventurous princess who roams the world in the service of justice, supported by her humorous sidekick Birillo (Ferdinand Guillaume). She takes up the cause of two young nobles, Michele and Jole, who have been dispossessed by the unscrupulous baron Max. With her bare fists, she eliminates six shifty circus people sent by Max. “Remarkable stunts, of which a professional strong-woman of Houdini- like prowess is the protagonist, are the outstanding feature of this unusual and entertaining thrill-film, whilst the amazing sensations are pleasantly relieved by a vein of irresistible comedy (“The Bioscope”, 1 April 1920).