Emma meets Tancredi in Florence, embarking on a love affair with the intoxicating cosmos he represents: endless days in the gauzy hills, the sun-blanched beaches. They become engaged. Soon, however, Emma becomes caught in family politics, learning what is expected of a woman in Florentine high society. The same beauty that intoxicated Emma reveals itself as superficial, and suffocates her. Noble Earth is a study of ennui and female repression within a world rarely seen onscreen - Italy's hermetic nobility.