The pedantic and conventional Lunardo and Maurizio have arranged the marriage of Lucieta, daughter of the former, to the latter's son Filipeto, but the couple are not to see one another before the wedding. Filipeto, disguised as a woman, contrives to see Lucieta and the couple fall in love, only to find that the rigid conventions followed by their fathers now demand the cancellation of the wedding. Matters are finally resolved through the saner activities of the men's wives and by Felice, wife to the rustego Cancian, and her friend Count Riccardo.

Goldoni's Venetian dialect is largely preserved in what some have regarded as Wolf-Ferrari's best comic opera, with its prelude and intermezzo well enough known in concert performance.