Benvenuto Cellini, the famed sculptor, has left Italy after a period of serious legal troubles. Francis I, the King of France who admires the Renaissance artists , gives him shelter at the court of Fontainebleau. One day Cellini receives a letter from a duchess who tells him that she is ready to pose for him on one condition - that she wears a mask. When the statue known as 'The Nymph of Fontainebleau' is completed the artist asks his mysterious model to unmask herself. She sticks to her initial demand and refuses...