Though he went on to have a successful career as a businessman in the United States, Nathan Gallizier was born in Italy, and his early experiences in that country significantly influenced his literary output as a novelist. Set in Rome in the year 999, this novel follows the torrid romance of protagonists Otto and Stephania.

The darkness of the tenth century is dissipated by no contemporary historian. Monkish chronicles alone shed a faint light over the discordant chaos of the Italian world. Rome was no longer the capital of the earth. The seat of empire had shifted from the banks of the Tiber to the shores of the Bosporus, and the seven hilled city of Constantine had assumed the imperial purple of the ancient capital of the Cæsars. Centuries of struggles with the hosts of foreign invaders had in time lowered the state of civilization to such a degree, that in point of literature and art the Rome of the tenth century could not boast of a single name worthy of being transmitted to posterity. Even the memory of the men whose achievements in the days of its glory constituted the pride and boast of the Roman world, had become almost extinct. A great lethargy benumbed the Italian mind, engendered by the reaction from the incessant feuds and broils among the petty tyrants and oppressors of the country. Together with the rest of the disintegrated states of Italy, united by no common bond, Rome had become the prey of the most terrible disorders. Papacy had fallen into all manner of corruption. Its former halo and prestige had departed. The chair of St. Peter was sought for by bribery and controlling influence, often by violence and assassination, and the city was oppressed by factions and awed into submission by foreign adventurers in command of bands collected from the outcasts of all nations. From the day of Christmas in the year 800, when at the hands of Pope Leo III, Charlemagne received the imperial crown of the West, the German Kings dated their right as rulers of Rome and the Roman world, a right, feebly and ineffectually contested by the emperors of the East. It was the dream of every German King immediately upon his election to cross the Alps to receive at the hand of the Pope the crown of a country which resisted and resented and never formally recognized a superiority forced upon it. Thus from time to time we find Rome alternately in revolt against German rule, punished, subdued and again imploring the aid of the detested foreigners against the misrule of her own princes, to settle the disputes arising from pontifical elections, or as protection against foreign invaders and the violence of contending factions. Plunged in an abyss from which she saw no other means of extricating herself, harassed by the Hungarians in Lombardy and the Saracens in Calabria, Italy had, in the year 961, called on Otto the Great, King of Germany, for assistance. Little opposition was made to this powerful monarch. Berengar II, the reigning sovereign of Italy, submitted and agreed to hold his kingdom of him as a fief. Otto thereupon returned to Germany, but new disturbances arising, he crossed the Alps a second time, deposed Berengar and received at the hands of Pope John XII the imperial dignity nearly suspended for forty years.

"A splendid bit of old Roman mosaic, or a gorgeous piece of tapestry. Otto is a striking and pathetic figure. Descriptive of the city, the gorgeous ceremonials of the court and the revolt are a series of wonderful pictures." Cincinnati Enquire

It was the hour of high noon on a sultry October day in Rome, in the year of our Lord nine hundred and ninety-nine. In the porphyry cabinet of the imperial palace on Mount Aventine, before a table covered with parchments and scrolls, there sat an individual, who even in the most brilliant assembly would have attracted general and immediate attention. Judging from his appearance he had scarcely passed his thirtieth year. His bearing combined a marked grace and intellectuality. The finely shaped head poised on splendid shoulders denoted power and intellect. The pale, olive tints of the face seemed to intensify the brilliancy of the black eyes whose penetrating gaze revealed a singular compound of mockery and cynicism. The mouth, small but firm, was not devoid of disdain, and even cruelty, and the smile of the thin, compressed lips held something more subtle than any passion that can be named. His ears, hands and feet were of that delicacy and smallness, which is held to denote aristocracy of birth. And there was in his manner that indescribable combination of unobtrusive dignity and affected elegance which, in all ages and countries, through all changes of manners and customs has rendered the demeanour of its few chosen possessors the instantaneous interpreter of their social rank. He was dressed in a crimson tunic, fastened with a clasp of mother-of-pearl. Tight fitting hose of black and crimson terminating in saffron-coloured shoes covered his legs, and a red cap, pointed at the top and rolled up behind brought the head into harmony with the rest of the costume.