Salvatore is in love with the young and beautiful Fiore, whose mother, the Duchess Mastema, is a rich and cruel landowner. When Terzo and his friends visit the duchess's lands, they are caught in a pitched battle between the oppressed peasants and the duchess's hired thugs, and Terzo is forced to put his strategic wisdom to the test.

Like Louis de Bernieres's Corelli's Mandolin, Gianni Riotta's charming and provocative romance explores large and small matters of love and war, shifting between the turbulence of postwar Sicily and the great battles of ancient and modern history. A major bestseller in Italy, Prince of the Clouds is a deeply moving work of fiction, imbued with rare vibrance and feeling.