Callimaco is taken by the beauty of Lucrezia , but she is the loyal wife of Nicia , a rich and foolish lawyer .  Callimaco hires the service of a shady ` fixer ' named Ligurio to aid in his quest to sleep with her .  Lgurio informs Callimaco that Nicia and Lucrezia are anxious to have a child .  With the fixer's help , .  Callimaco masquerades as a doctor and convinces Nicia that the best way for Lucrezia to conceive a child is by her taking a potion made from the Mandrake Root .  He lies and warns Nicia that the first man to sleep with Lucrezia after she has taken the potion will die within eight days .  Together they devise a plan to kidnap a stranger to sleep with Lucrezia and draw out the poison .  Callimaco then disguises himself and arranges to be the one who is kidnapped .  Lucrezia is an honorable woman and does not at first agree to meet with the stranger .  Nicia gets both Lucrezia's mother , a woman of ill repute , and her confessor Brother Timoteo , a priest of low morals , to aid in convincing Lucrezia of the necessity of the plan .  After finally sleeping with Lucrezia , Callimaco confesses everything .  Lucrezia gives thought to the duplicity of her husband , her mother , and her confessor , and decides that she now wants Callimaco as a lover forever .  Callimaco gets what he had desired and everyone else continues to believe that each had outwitted the others . 
Why does Callimaco pretend to be the one being kidnapped?
Callimaco pretends to be kidnapped so that he can sleep with Lucrezia, whose husband believes it is necessary to cleanse the poison from her systems