Rudolf II, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, is paranoid, spendthrift, and
wayward. In 16th century Prague, seat of Christendom, he rules over an empty tr
easury and a court of parasites and schemers. Meanwhile in the ghetto, the Great
Rabbi, mystic and seer, guides his people in the uneasy cohabitation of Jew and
Christian, while the fabulously wealthy financier Mordechai Meisl has a hand in
transactions across Europe and is reputed to be sustaining the treasury. His be
autiful wife, Esther, forms a links of a different sort between the castle and t
he ghetto.
