Play: Mandragola

Setting and Premise
Set in early 16th‑century Florence, Mandragola follows a sleek comic conspiracy that exposes the gullibility of respectable citizens and the pliability of moral scruples. Callimaco, a young man recently returned from Paris, becomes infatuated at first sight with Lucrezia, the virtuous wife of the wealthy but foolish lawyer Nicia Calfucci. Nicia and Lucrezia have been married for years without conceiving a child, and Nicia’s desperation to secure an heir becomes the lever by which Callimaco and his facilitator Ligurio plan their seduction and social ascent.

The Mandrake Scheme
Ligurio, a professional go‑between and parasite, devises a ruse that cloaks desire in the language of medical expertise and pious counsel. He presents Callimaco as a learned physician who recommends a miraculous fertility cure: a potion distilled from the mandrake root. The catch, he explains to Nicia, is that the first man who sleeps with the woman after she drinks the potion will die within eight days. To protect Nicia while preserving the promise of pregnancy, the conspirators propose procuring a disposable “stranger” to bed Lucrezia just once, thus absorbing the poison. Nicia’s vanity and hunger for an heir make him embrace the plan he barely understands.

The more formidable obstacle is Lucrezia’s conscience. She is devoted to her marriage and wary of schemes, so Ligurio opens a second front, recruiting two authorities to sanctify the idea: Lucrezia’s mother Sostrata, eager for a grandchild, and Friar Timoteo, a pliant confessor. Greased with gifts and flattery, the friar constructs a comforting casuistry: if the intention is to restore a sterile marriage and achieve a good end, then the morally troubling means can be excused. Sostrata echoes the argument and presses her daughter to submit for the family’s sake. Cornered by counsel that comes cloaked in religion and maternal care, Lucrezia yields with reluctance.

Night of Deception
The plot culminates in a staged abduction. Under cover of darkness, Nicia himself leads servants to seize the designated “stranger.” The victim is Callimaco in disguise, who is hustled into Lucrezia’s bed as if he were a random passerby. He sleeps with her, then later returns privately to reveal his identity and proclaim his devotion. Lucrezia, freshly awakened to her husband’s vanity, the friar’s hypocrisy, and the manipulation used to make her comply, makes a cool, pragmatic pivot: she accepts Callimaco as her lover and decides to rule the arrangement, turning the contrivance meant to violate her will into one that serves her choice.

Satire and Themes
The comedy sharpens into satire as fools and knaves advance together. Nicia’s learned pretensions mask ignorance; his craving for an heir makes him the engine of his own dishonor. Ligurio’s ingenuity and Callimaco’s desire thrive because civic and religious authorities, lawyer, mother, friar, easily launder private appetites into public goods. The friar’s cheerful sophistry lampoons clerical corruption, while Lucrezia’s final agency unsettles easy moral judgments: virtue in a corrupt world adapts, and prudence can wear a sinner’s face.

Resolution
In broad daylight, all parties collect their rewards. Nicia gushes thanks to Friar Timoteo and, oblivious, invites Callimaco to visit daily as a family friend and hoped‑for godfather of the child he believes he has secured. Callimaco distributes presents and secures his access. Lucrezia signals that the night’s act has become a settled arrangement. The comic ending is triumphant and chilling at once: wit defeats folly, desire bypasses law, and appearances, carefully managed, keep Florence’s decorous surface intact while its moral foundations quietly buckle.