His servant Brighella arrives to bother him with certain debts he needs to pay and reprove him for throwing away his small fortune for household junk.

His wife, Isabella, then complains to him for having accepted a merchant's daughter as a daughter-in-law — though she won't say no to the money from the dowry, which she used to redeem a precious ring that her husband had pawned for a loan.

Doralice, the daughter-in-law, laments that even with such a large dowry, she is not given the money to buy a bridal gown, but Anselmo continues to think about his coin and doesn't care.

Brighella, together with Arlecchino, who is dressed as an Armenian, plans to trick his own master, Anselmo, selling him fake ancient artifacts.

Brighella again manages to fool Anselmo, who is intent on admiring an ancient Greek manuscript, by selling him fake antiques.

Pantalone then encounters Arlecchino, still in disguise, who wants to sell more antiques to Anselmo, unmasks him and makes him confess the trick that he and Brighella played at the count's expense.

Doralice enters the room, but Anselmo gets distracted by the cameo design on her watch, believing it an antique, and entrusts the role of judge to Pantalone.

Anselmo leaves to go to Brighella's; Isabella and Doralice fight, assisted by their respective "gentlemen," the doctor and the knight, and the meeting fails spectacularly.

Anselmo has bought a bunch of knick-knacks from Brighella, but Pantalone brings in Pancrazio, the most famous antiquarian in Palermo, who tells him that all his antiques are junk.

Then Anselmo and Pantalone also come in to speak with their wife and daughter respectively, while the knight and doctor discover that Colombina has exaggerated the reports of the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law in order to stir up the argument.

However, in spite of intense mediation on the part of the rest of the family, they cannot agree on who must visit whom to make peace, because neither wants to get up and leave the room.

Pantalone concludes that there is nothing to be done, but thinks that once those who fomented disagreement are removed, and once Doralice and Isabella are kept apart for a time, he will have succeeded at making the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law live together in peace.