Two Gondeliers must choose between twenty four prospective brides. But Marco and Giuseppe choose to "Let impartial Fate / Select for us a mate!" And there is a rumor that one of them is the King of Barataria. ["Barataria" is a fictitious place, first named in Cervantes' Don Quixote, an insula given to Sancho Paz as a joke]. They rule the palace in tandem until all is happily resolved, when the nurse reveals yet another mixed up exchange of infants had been made.