Cistellaria

Acts

• 1
  Act 1

  Two courtesans discuss their unhappy lot. A young man is in love with one of them, but his father has arranged a different marriage.

  230 lines
• 2
  Act 2

  The story of an exposed baby girl, left with identifying tokens in a little box (the cistella of the title).

  383 lines
• 3
  Act 3

  The casket with the recognition tokens is lost and found. Mistaken identities multiply. The plot thickens around the question of who the girl really is.

  28 lines
• 4
  Act 4

  The truth begins to emerge. The tokens in the casket point to the girl's true parentage — she is freeborn, not a courtesan.

  170 lines
• 5
  Act 5

  Recognition and reunion. The girl is identified as the daughter of a citizen. The young lover is free to marry her. The play is fragmentary and patched from later summaries.

  20 lines