Uncertainties of the play's date, authorship, and sources make it one of the most widely disputed works in English Renaissance drama.
The play is thought to have been acted by the King's Men, the company Fletcher served as house playwright—though firm data on its performance history are lacking.
[1] Inconsistencies in the play's internal evidence, notably the lack of Fletcher's highly distinctive pattern of textual preferences (ye for you, 'em for them, etc.)
[2][3] These arguments depend upon literary parallels and the distinctive textual preferences of the different authors; for example, Ford's pattern of unusual contractional forms (like t'ee for to ye,) is present in some scenes but absent from others.
One scholar, Bertha Hensman, argued that an original comedy by Fletcher and Rowley was shifted into a tragicomic form by Massinger as reviser.
The disputed origins of the factions were by some accounts rooted in the rivalry of two lovers of Bianca Cancellieri; her name suggested the Biancha in this play.
Other possible sources include the Florentine History (Istorie fiorentine) by Niccolò Machiavelli and the Excerpta Controversarium of Seneca the Elder.
Baptista's situation is less happy: fourteen years earlier, he, a widower in his prime, contracted a secret marriage with Juliana, a niece of the Duke of Genoa.
By the scene's close, Mentivole expresses his love for Clarissa; she responds positively, and gives him a diamond ring as a token of her affection and commitment.
But the Duke sees the injustice done against Cesario, and decrees that the now-widowed Mariana should marry the young man, and endow him with three-quarters of Alberto's estate; the remaining share will serve as Clarissa's dowry.