Fra Piazza del Popolo (1925)

Rome in the 1830s. The young Danish sculptor Olaf Malm enjoys the artistic atmosphere of the “Eternal City,” where he flourishes and which inspires him time and again. One day, he falls in love with his young compatriot Sigrid Olaisen, the daughter of a respectable and quite wealthy man who owns a sawmill. Sigrid’s father even commissions Olaf to make a marble bust in her likeness. At a time when social class differences still carry great weight and a father must give his blessing to a future marriage, seemingly insurmountable obstacles soon pile up before the lovers. Before long, the young woman becomes pregnant, though Olaf knows nothing about it. Olaisen and his daughter travel on to Naples. A letter from Sigrid’s father, stating that Sigrid will marry the wealthy Englishman Charles Vernon at her father’s wish, forces Olaf to believe that his Sigrid has been unfaithful to him and thrown away their love. Deeply disappointed, he smashes the unfinished statue and withdraws from public life. Sigrid gives birth to the child. Her father, however, has been considered missing ever since the incident: he is believed to have drowned in the Tiber, which had recently burst its banks and caused severe destruction. When Sigrid realizes that her father has driven her and Olaf apart, she breaks with him and travels to Rome to set things straight with Olaf. There, however, she learns that Olaf is said to have died while rescuing a drowning woman from the floodwaters of the Tiber. This human tragedy continues two decades later. Henry, the sculptor’s son, who knows neither of his parents, has by now grown into a fine young man. At the country estate of the banker Gram, he meets again Gram’s beautiful daughter Harriet, a childhood friend. The two young people have fallen in love. The Roman tragedy of the past threatens to repeat itself in England, for Harriet seems to be far above Henry in social standing. Mr. Gram plans an arranged marriage between his daughter and Pisani, an Italian country gentleman. Pisani does his part to make Henry look bad in Harriet’s eyes. Harriet is taken in and betrays her love for Henry, who then withdraws from her. Henry unknowingly follows in his father’s footsteps and lives the life of an artist in Rome. In the Eternal City, Henry also happens to meet Harriet again and tells her about Pisani’s intrigues. A Franciscan monk approaches Henry and becomes his unexpected ally in winning Harriet back; she has never stopped loving Henry completely. The monk recognizes from the ring Henry wears that Henry must be his son. To spare him all the pain and renunciation that he, Olaf, had to endure himself more than twenty years earlier, “Brother” Olaf intervenes and gives his son and Harriet’s happiness in love a second chance. Pisani, however, falls victim to one of his own villainous schemes.