A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-performed play, and it is ranked among the finest Jacobean era comedies.

[citation needed] Volpone (The Fox) is a Venetian gentleman who pretends to be on his deathbed after a long illness in order to dupe Voltore (The Vulture), Corbaccio (The Raven) and Corvino (The Crow), three men who aspire to inherit his fortune.

Mosca deceives Corvino into believing that the moribund Volpone will be cured of his illness if he lies in bed beside a young woman.

In the ensuing trial at court, the truth of the matter is well-buried by Voltore, using his prowess as a lawyer to convince the Avocatori, with false evidence given by Mosca, Volpone and the other dupes.

The quarto contains Jonson's dedication to Oxford and Cambridge, as well as a great number of commendatory verses, in English and Latin, by fellow-poets such as Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.

Earlier in the century, critics had complained about the improbability of the fifth act, frequently likened to farce, and to Jonson's highly Latinate language.

The play was revived by the Phoenix Society at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1921; W. B. Yeats was in the audience and mentions the production approvingly in a letter to Allan Wade.

In the same year, David Raeburn directed a modern dress performance featuring rock music settings of the songs at Beckenham Boys Grammar.

[1] Matthew Warchus received an Olivier Award nomination for his 1995 production at the Royal National Theatre; it featured Michael Gambon and Simon Russell Beale.

[2] A short-lived 1964 Broadway musical adaptation entitled Foxy moved the play's setting to the Yukon during the gold rush of 1898.

The stage adaptation Sly Fox, by Larry Gelbart, updated the setting from Renaissance Venice to 19th century San Francisco, and changed the tone from satire to farce.

It featured Rex Harrison in the main role, Cliff Robertson as Mosca ("McFly"), and Maggie Smith as the love interest.

In France, there have been three further video and DVD adaptations of Volpone based on versions of the Stefan Zweig/Jules Romains script: in 1978, Jean Meyer directed a production in the 'théâtre de boulevard' style for the Théâtre de Marigny and Panorama (Au Théâtre ce soir), starring himself as Corbaccio, Jean Le Poulain as Volpone, Francis Huster as Mosca and Claude Jade as Colomba (Celia).

This was followed in 2001 by a production directed by Francis Perrin with a script that resembles the Zweig/Romains text but rewritten in pseudo-Elizabethan style by Jean Collette and Toni Cecchinato.

In 2003, the play was rewritten for television by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt for a production starring Gérard Depardieu as Volpone and Daniel Prévost as Mosca.

Set in modern Liguria, it features Paolo Villaggio as Ugo Maria Volpone and Enrico Montesano as Bartolomeo Mosca.

On 24 March 2004, Ian McDiarmid starred as Volpone in a BBC Radio 3 production directed by Peter Kavanagh that included Tom Hollander as Mosca, Malcolm Sinclair as Corvino, Patrick Barlow as Voltore and John Rowe as Corbacchio.