It is Venice, 1604, a city of dead ends and alleyways, crumbling stucco and private ridotti where fortunes are lost over games of primero. It is a place of courtesans, spies and ex-concubines who live out their best years in island nunneries.

Then one sister upsets the apple cart. Suor Annetta has brought to Venice a rare and valuable thing, a diamond so special it blesses the good and brings sfortuna to the bad. Once in the eye of an Indian idol in Golconda, it found its way to the