Like many of Angelo Cuccoli’s manuscripts, Edipo Re di Tebe con Faggiolino pastore (Oedipus king of Thebes with Faggiolino the shepherd) is a simple summary of the story. The plot uses the Oedipus myth, but strays away from Sophocles’ tragedy: the prologue relates the previous events (the prophecy told to Laius, the death sentence of his son, his son’s adoption by Polybus, king of Corinth), but not Oedipus’ attempt to discover the cause of the plague in Thebes. Moreover, the play stages all the episodes of Oedipus’ story whereas Sophocles’ tragedy only mentions them as retrospective stories. Although Cuccoli also continued the story (La Morte di Edipo re di Tebe), his play ends with Oedipus’ suicide.

In this “comedy” (as it is defined by the author), Faggiolino plays the role of the shepherd who saves the child Oedipus and takes him to Corinth’s court after finding him in the forest.

The manuscript includes verses taken from a few prayers, which act as reminders for the puppeteer. It also features an invitation addressed to the audience, in which the puppeteer introduces the topic of the show using short rhymed verses.

In the prologue, Laius asks the oracle about his son’s fate and, when he learns that his son will kill him and marry his mother Jocasta, he orders Creon to kill his son. Creon, however, abandons the child in a forest instead, where he is found by a shepherd named Faggiolino, who brings the infant to the king of Corinth, Polybus.

The action of the play starts twenty years later. Oedipus consults the oracle about his fortune and he learns what was already predicted and told to Laius: he will kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus goes in search of his true parents and, on the way there, he fights Laius and kills him. Upon his arrival in Thebes, Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sfinge (Sphinx) who then kills herself. In return for his victory, Oedipus is made king of Thebes and the widowed Jocasta, his mother, becomes his wife. The gods, irritated by this incestuous union, start an epidemic in Thebes, which lasts until the prophet Esone explains its cause. Upon learning the truth, Oedipus, horrified, gouges out his own eyes and kills himself.