From 1680 to 1682, as part of the Carnival, Venice hosts three seasons of puppet operas written by Acciaiuoli and performed at the Teatro San Moisè. The theatre has been partly dismantled, but a temporary stage is set up for the occasion. Acciaiuoli stages three drammi per musica on this stage, using large counterweighted figures animated from beneath the stage, while singers and musicians play behind the stage. Following Il Leandro, the first performance of this kind shown at Venice the previous year, these three plays – Damira placata, L'Ulisse in Feaccia, and Girello – make Acciaiuoli (whose name never appears in the libretti) win a learnt and aristocratic audience, that reads the texts in printed libretti handed out before the performances. These libretti give many indications about the musicians, set designs, machines and dances of the shows.

Girello is a burlesque drama performed as a puppet play in 1682 at the Teatro San Moisè, with music by Francesco Antonio Mamiliano Pistocchi (known as Pistocchino), a composer who had already written the music for Leandro (according to some sources, the music was by Acciaiuoli himself). The score has been lost. As for the play, it was the first of the opéra bouffe genre and had already been performed several times by human actors, with music by Jacopo Melani and Alessandro Stradellaand, and it had met with great success—in Rome, at the palazzo Colonna in Borgo, during the Carnival in 1668, as an interlude in Rospigliosi's La Comica del cielo, then in Bologna in 1669, Florence in 1670 and 1674, Sienna in 1672, Naples in 1673, Livorno in 1673, Modena in 1675 and Reggio in 1676. However, it seems to have been performed with puppets for the first time in Venice, like the plays from previous theatre seasons.

Introduced to the Venetian audience as “una bizzaria dramatica” (a dramatic oddity), “una terza entità partecipante del comico e del dramatico” (a third party entity belonging to both comedy and drama), the play fits the tastes of Venice, defined as “tutto capriccio” (very capricious). The hero describes himself as a “bel fantoccio” (I, 15), a term used to refer to puppets in texts of this time period. Just like those used in L'Ulisse, the puppets are made of wax, and they seem to meet with as much success as the previous season. The play alternates between outside and inside scenes, taking us from the gardens of the palace to the forest and then to the entrance of the Underworld, with full-view scenery change. The text, which begins with a prologue in the Underworld, makes use of the baroque play between truth and appearances, and stages an unassuming character, Girello, suddenly being turned into a king by a wave of a magic wand. This very wand eventually puts all the characters back to their initial place. For the greatest part of the play, two Odoacro coexist on stage. They are physically similar but diametrically opposed in their behaviour: confronted with this new Doppelganger, the King has no choice but to yield to the power of appearances.

The comic of the play lies in misunderstandings arising from these lookalikes, in particular with the character Tartaglia, who must deal with the contradictory injunctions made by his two masters. But this sense of comic also originates in the farcical characters (Pasquella, the old lustful nanny, the conceited Filone) and in the series of beatings to which the King is victim as the ultimate result of this reversal of roles. These farcical elements stand in stark contrast with the Petrarchan quality of the dialogues, which oppose Odoardo and Erminda, or Mustafa and Doralba. Unlike the first operas for puppets, the ballets are almost entirely absent: even though the presentation page of the libretto mentions a ballet of Spirits in the Underworld, a ballet of Satyrs in the woods and a ballet of court dwarves in the gardens, the last two interludes are no longer part of the play.

In the Underworld, Plutone (Pluto) and Proserpina dispatch their armies of Erinyes on Earth, ordering them to punish Odoardo, the tyran from Thebes.

Filone and Ormondo, the King's counsels, are waiting for the King to return and celebrate his wedding with the young Erminda. Ormondo confesses his love to Pasquella, Girello's wife, who turns him down: Girello says that he will beat him and, taking revenge, Ormondo sends him to prison. At Court, Doralba, the King's sister, is desperately in love with the slave Mustafa. Filone and Ormondo demand that Girello be punished, and he is sentenced to exile. Mustafa gives him a little money, before joining Doralba and singing his love to her: as he is overeager, Doralba denounces him to Odoardo.

Girello, exiled in the woods, meets a magician who introduces himself as the Patriarch of the abyss. To prove his title, he shows him several diabolical creatures. Scared, Girello tries to send him off, but the magician offers to help him. The stage transforms into the entrance of the Underworld: demons are coming out of it to dress Girello with kingly clothes. If he keeps these clothes on and puts a magic root next to the King, Girello will look like Odoardo, and Odoardo will look like Girello.

Girello arrives at Court in his new clothes and announces a series of harebrained laws, before calling his counsels “Governator delle galline” (governor of hens) and “Segretario maggior della brachetta” (Secretary General of the (Trousers) Fly). He arrives without his sword, is recognised as Girello, comes back with his sword and is seen as the King, even though his servants think that he has changed because he is no longer greedy. The old Pasquella prays to Girello, whom she believes to be the King, asking him to allow her to marry again so her youth is not lost in waiting for her husband. As for Mustafa, who has been accused of trying to rape the King's sister, he asks for his forgiveness. Girello throws Ormondo and Filone behind bars, chooses Mustafa as his favourite, and tells Pasquella to wait and see what is coming for her. The real Odoardo, surprised to find his counsel in prison, asks Tartaglia to release them. From this arises a first misunderstanding, as Tartaglia cannot make sense of the King's inconsistent orders. Conversely, Mustafa thanks Odoardo for his good deed; the King does not understand why, and he puts him in prison, with Doralba, who confessed that she was in love with the slave.

Girello asks for the lovers to be released, then he marries them and sends Filone and Ormondo to the galleys. When Tartaglia tells him about his contradictory behaviour, Girello demands that he be beaten with a stick the next time he loses his memory. Pasquello, begging for a husband, is willing to react positively to the advances of the so-called King, who swears that she will be beaten; Erminda is getting ready to spend the night with Girello, whom she believes to be her husband. Girello manages to slip the root in Odoardo's belongings. The King, standing in front of his doppelganger, fails to understand the situation, and he despairs when Tartaglia asks him to bow before Girello. In prison, where he was sent, Odoardo asks for his wife to intervene in his favour: it is Pasquella, and not Erminda, who answers him.

At this point, the magician decides to remove the veil from the mortals' eyes—he turns Tartaglia into a statue, and tells Girello that he is taking his royal status away, for he has misused it. Girello tries to have him beaten, but the magician reveals the truth to everyone. Neither Pasquella nor Erminda knows where her real husband is anymore; as for Mustafa, it is revealed that he is the son of the King of Cyprus and Erminda's brother, which makes his marriage with the King's sister acceptable. The magician sets the example of forgiveness to the King by giving Tartaglia his human form back: Odoardo then forgives Girello.