The film is based on the life of Hendrik Goltzius, a late 16th-century Dutch printer and engraver of erotic prints. He seduces the Margrave of Alsace into paying for a printing press to make and publish illustrated books. Goltzius promises him an extraordinary book of pictures of the Old Testament Biblical stories. Erotic tales of the temptation of Adam and Eve, Lot (biblical person) and his daughters, David and Bathsheba, Joseph (son of Jacob) and Potiphar's wife, Samson and Delilah, and John the Baptist and Salome. To tempt the Margrave further, Goltzius and his printing company will offer to perform dramatizations of these erotic stories for his court.