The Conclave is a courtroom style drama that takes place in Rome in 1458, five years after the fall of Constantinople to Islam.  It follows the story of twenty-seven- year-old Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia (Spanish heart-throb Manu Fullola) in his first papal conclave.

After the death of his uncle, Pope Calixtus III and his brother Pedro Borgia - Captain General of the Church army — Rodrigo finds himself locked “cum clave” with eighteen powerful men (British stalwarts Brian Blessed, James Faulkner and Peter Guinness) fighting for the title of “Ruler of the World”. With Roman mobs running about the city killing every Spaniard they can lay their hands on, Rodrigo has only one weapon to defend himself: his vote to elect the new pope, and with that he must secure both his life and his future.

But while Rodrigo is locked behind closed doors in the Vatican palace, his lifelong rival, Giuliano della Rovere—later to become Pope Julius II (German television star Matthias Koeberlin)—competes for the love of his concubine, the beautiful Vannozza de Catanei (twenty-year-old newcomer Nora Tschirner).