When sixteen year old Lucrezia de’ Medici marries the fifth duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d’Este, she imagines life with her handsome new husband will be idyllic.  But she doesn’t know that he is a very complicated man.  The marriage is fraught with difficulties from the start, and, as time passes, Lucrezia becomes increasingly alienated.   
For Alfonso, the pressure mounts as the Vatican threatens to reclaim his title, should the couple remain unable to produce an heir.  Only his mistress, Francesca, seems able to calm his increasing volatility.  But Alfonso’s growing resentment towards his duchess soon becomes unbearable, and he begins to plot and unthinkable way to escape his problems.  
Originally inspired by a Robert Browning poem, ‘His Last Duchess’ gorgeously brings to life the passions and people of sixteenth-century Tuscany and Ferrara.