In 1682, Acciaiuoli’s three seasons at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice come to an end, and the businessman comes back to Rome. He stages the play Chi è cagion del suo mal pianga sè stesso (Let him who causes his own suffering blame himself) at the Teatro Colonna, with Caffarelli’s Il falso nel vero; the two plays are performed for the inauguration of this new theatre built by the Contestabile Colonna in his palace. The play seems to have been performed again at the Palazzo di Spagna in the same year.

The libretto is written in irregular verses and, as usual, does not bear Acciaiuoli’s name. However, the title page indicates: “Poesia di Ovidio e musica di Orfeo”, setting the play in a surprising fictional universe—pastoral and ancient, considering the content of the play. Acciaiuoli wrote the text, but he also likely wrote the music (usually the composers were mentioned in the libretto). The play, defined as a burlesque drama, is described in Giuseppe Michele Morei’s Notizie istoriche degli Arcadi morti (1720) as a “bagatella per divertimento della sposa” (Marina Mancini Colonna, the Contestabile’s wife). At the time, the word “bagatella” referred to hand games, particularly to puppets: its use here suggests that the play showed puppets, like the plays Acciaiuoli staged during the previous seasons. However, no testimony clearly confirms this.

The title of the play is a line spoken by Atamira, a character from L’Empio punito who said about herself: “Chi è cagion del suo mal pianga sè stessa” (III, 13). In this new play, the words are told by Clorimeno in a reckless confidence to Dottore Grisanto, a master when it comes to love – against his own best interest. Acciaiuoli borrows the topic of the untimely confidence from Giovanni Francesco Straparola’s La Piacevoli notti (1550), giving the play a repetitive and farcical structure that was also used in Molière’s École des femmes (The School for Wives, 1662). Like these inspirations, Acciaiuoli’s play follows a three-part structure: a first confidence between lovers, a balcony scene leading to a “double enunciation”, and a final scene of marriage. Like Molière’s Arnolphe, Grisanto, an old pedantic fogey, laughs at his student’s joke, before he understands that it targeted him. He is accompanied by another comic character—his sister Nisbe, an old visionary woman who falls in love with every man she meets. The cast of this farce also includes Lucillo, a cowardly and boastful valet who brings a farcical tone to the play, as well as multiple misunderstandings. A few passages are well suited for being performed with puppets, most particularly the teacher’s failed attempts at curtsying and dancing, during a ballet of young dancers; or the scene in which he is assailed by his Latinist students—a scene that also ends with a dance.

Dorisbe arrives in Rome with her servant Lucillo: she rejoices at the idea of meeting her future husband, Dottore Grisanto (Doctor Grisanto). Clorimeno, Grisanto’s servant, refuses to be enchained by love, but his master orders him to fall in love. Outside the Colosseum, Dorisbe meets Nisbe, sister of the Dottore; she guides her to her brother’s house. On her way to announce the arrival of Grisanto’s future wife, Nisbe meets Clorimeno and falls in love with him. As for Dorisbe, she despairs after meeting the Dottore: the man she must marry is old, hoary and stupid. In the grip of her sorrow, Dorisbe meets Clorimeno: they both fall in love at first sight, and the young woman asks her lover to spare her from this gruesome marriage. Grisanto learns about his future wife’s unhappiness and dismisses his students to go comfort her; the Latinist students begin to dance.

Clorimeno tells his master Grisanto that he loves Dorisbe. Grisanto laughs until he understands that he is the unfortunate husband; he decides to take revenge. After turning the old Nisbe’s love down, Clorimeno meets Dorisbe on her balcony. But Grisanto asks the cowardly Lucillo to make the lover flee and then to take revenge for him, and he scolds his betrothed; she pretends to be madly in love with Grisanto. Unfortunately, Clorimeno relates the whole story to his master when he sees him: he will come back to his beloved before the sun rises. Grisanto hides to spy on the lovers: Dorisbe has seen him, and she makes an ostentatious declaration to Clorimeno, telling him that she is faithful to her husband. In the following scenes, Nisbe comforts herself with Lucillo, while Dorisbe tries to clear up the situation with her lover, who despaired at her last words. The old pedant and future husband practices curtsying, but he falls, and young dancers begin to dance instead.

Grisanto offers Clorimeno to Nisbe, who agrees. Clorimeno, who tried to kill himself, falls into Dorisbe’s arms. The lovers reconcile and agree to meet at night; Grisanto overhears them and decides to spy on them. He orders Lucillo to kill any man or woman in his garden. At night, Nisbe is waiting for Clorimeno: Lucillo arrives instead, and he is about to kill her, following the orders he was given. Grisanto stops her just before he does, and he believes that when Clorimeno talked about his lover, he was in fact talking about his sister: he arranges for Nisbe and Clorimeno to marry. Overhearing them, Dorisbe expresses jealousy, which Grisanto interprets as worry over seeing him with another woman. When Clorimeno arrives in the garden, he understands that Dorisbe is his master’s future wife and apologises; Grisanto promises to forgive him, as well as to give him his properties and the woman of the house. When the young man enters the house, Nisbe welcomes him and tells Dorisbe that she will marry him. Clorimeno protests, which comforts Dorisbe and stops her jealous feelings. Grisanto learns the truth and tries to make Clorimeno flee. But Clorimeno answers that he only followed his master’s advice.