as infants. Giovanni is recognized and accepted as the Duke's son; he and Bellaura are married. In the subplot, Cornari is a wealthy gentleman of Venice (the play's title derives from this subplot) who laments the childlessness of his marriage with his wife Claudiana. He is determined that his debauched nephew Malipiero shall not inherit the Cornari estate. So Cornari abducts an English gentleman called Florelli, a man of virtue and valor, and imprisons the kidnapped man in his palace. Cornari's goal is that Florelli will impregnate Claudiana. When Cornari thinks this has been accomplished, he plans to have Florelli killed; before doing so, Cornari masquerades as a priest and hears Florelli's confession – which convinces him that his wife has kept her virtue and no impregnation has taken place. In fact, Florelli and Claudiana spent their time together praying for Cornari. Ashamed and repentant, Cornari abandons his scheme and releases Florelli. (Florelli is tossed into the street with a bag over his head; the experience leaves him distracted. He determines, firstly, to get drunk, and secondly, to leave Venice.) Cornari's nephew Malipiero, however, is arrested for participating in Thomazo's treasonous plot, and eventually comes to a sincere reformation of his ways, making him suitable as his uncle's heir. Critic Arthur Nason called the play's comic scenes "worthy of Restoration comedy at its best." Notes Sources Forsythe, Robert Stanley. The Relations of Shirley's Plays to the Elizabethan Drama. New York, Columbia University Press, 1914. Hoenselaars, A. J. Images of Englishmen as Foreigners in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Rutherford, NJ, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992. Nason, Arthur Huntington. James Shirley, Dramatist: A Biographical and Critical Study. New York, 1915, reprinted New York, Benjamin Blom, 1967. Sharpe, Kevin M., and Steven N. Zwicker, eds. Reading, Society, and Politics in Early Modern England. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003. English Renaissance plays 1639 plays Plays by James Shirley