The story is set in Verona and tells of the forbidden love between two young people belonging to rival families who have been feuding for generations: the Montagues and the Capulets. One day, during a party organised by the Capulets, Romeo Montecchi meets Juliet Capuleti and the two fall in love at first sight. With the complicity of Friar Lawrence, a friend of Romeo's, the two marry in secret the next day and, with the complicity of Juliet's nurse, they even manage to spend a night of love together. Juliet's cousin, the irascible Tybalt, provokes Romeo and the two challenge each other to a duel. The former dies and the latter is judged exiled from Verona by the prince himself. Destined for a life far from her love, Juliet follows Friar Lawrence's desperate stratagem, which is to drink a potion that will make her appear dead, just long enough to fool the others, only to awaken with her love close by, who in turn will be warned of this stratagem. The plan fails, however, because Romeo is never informed in time, and when the news reaches him that Juliet is dead, he goes to the scene, ignoring the ban. There he meets Paride, Juliet's betrothed, and the two of them challenge each other to a duel: Romeo prevails. However, Romeo commits suicide next to his beloved by drinking poison. Shortly afterwards, Juliet wakes up, and seeing the body of her Romeo lifeless, she grabs her beloved's dagger and takes her own life in.