Anselmo and Lotario’s friendship turns to deception and betrayal over Camilla

Anselmo and Lothario’s friendship is introduced as an unusually close bond that their own actions seem to place beyond ordinary rivalry. Anselmo’s demand that Lothario test Camilla’s virtue makes that intimacy the instrument of a dangerous experiment: Lothario first objects on grounds of honor and conscience, but eventually agrees, and his effort to control the test gives way to concealed courtship and false assurances. Their relationship thus moves from mutual confidence to a friendship compromised by the very trust Anselmo insists upon.

The Two Friends

In Florence, Anselmo and Lothario are young men of wealth and standing, alike in age and tastes, though Anselmo is more drawn to love and Lothario to hunting. Each regularly sets aside his own preference for the other’s, a reciprocity so steady that the people who know them call them “The Two Friends.” Their closeness is not merely a public reputation: Lothario carries Anselmo’s marriage proposal to Camilla’s parents, helps secure the match, and is welcomed into the new household as someone dear to both spouses.

After the wedding celebrations, Lothario begins to limit his visits. He reasons that a friend should not frequent a married man’s home as freely as he did in bachelor days, because even a genuine friendship may expose a husband’s reputation to suspicion. Anselmo takes the withdrawal as an unnecessary loss. He complains that marriage should not end their companionship and assures Lothario that Camilla is content with his visits. Lothario agrees to dine there on two days each week and on holidays, while privately reserving the right to stay away when he thinks his friend’s honor requires it. At this point, his restraint expresses loyalty; soon, Anselmo will treat that loyalty as a resource to be spent.

Anselmo’s Test

Anselmo tells Lothario that he cannot be satisfied simply believing Camilla virtuous: he wants her virtue tested by temptation. In his view, goodness demonstrated without an opportunity to fail proves less than goodness maintained under pressure. He asks Lothario to court her, reasoning that a trusted friend can make the trial seem safe: if Camilla resists, Lothario can later disclose the contrivance, while Anselmo will have certainty about his wife and their marriage.

Lothario is astonished and initially refuses. He argues that Anselmo’s request conflicts with the friendship that should protect, rather than endanger, a friend’s honor. By making Lothario the means of testing Camilla, Anselmo risks the reputation of all three: the husband who invents the trial, the friend who participates, and the wife placed under suspicion without her knowledge. Lothario’s appeal is both ethical and personal. He understands the proposal as a demand that he help damage the very friend he has spent years serving.

Anselmo nevertheless insists that only Lothario can perform the test without bringing in another confidant. He asks for even a merely feigned beginning, presenting the task as a small service that will give him peace of mind. Lothario sees that Anselmo is fixed on proceeding and fears that refusal may lead him to entrust the scheme to someone less discreet. He agrees to undertake it, but with an intention unlike Anselmo’s: he plans to satisfy his friend without actually corrupting Camilla. Anselmo embraces him and treats the agreement as a great favor, while Lothario leaves troubled by what he has accepted.

The Scheme Becomes Deception

Anselmo arranges the opportunities himself. He offers money and jewels for Lothario to present to Camilla and proposes music and verses in her praise. Lothario initially keeps silent rather than court her, hoping to preserve her and the friendship from harm while reporting that she has resisted. Anselmo grows suspicious. Hidden in a room, he watches through a keyhole and discovers that Lothario has not spoken to Camilla at all. Confronted with the evidence, Lothario promises to carry out the test without further deception.

Anselmo then arranges an eight-day absence from home, presented to Camilla as an ordinary visit to a friend. During that time Lothario visits the house, where Camilla receives him courteously but takes care not to be alone with him. Her household arrangements include Leonela, her longtime attendant, though Leonela does not always follow Camilla’s instructions. Lothario spends the first days in silence. In the privacy of his thoughts, he dwells on Camilla’s beauty and goodness, struggles with his growing attraction, and tries to excuse his conduct by judging Anselmo’s experiment more reckless than his own disloyalty. The opportunity Anselmo has created, joined to Lothario’s changing feelings, defeats his original plan to keep the test harmless.

After Anselmo has been away three days, Lothario begins to declare his love. Camilla is taken aback and withdraws without answering him. She considers it unsafe and improper to give him another private opportunity and sends a letter to Anselmo. Lothario does not tell her that Anselmo designed the test, because he fears she might regard his courtship as an assigned performance rather than a sincere expression of his own desire. The original arrangement has therefore broken down: the friend recruited to imitate temptation has become emotionally involved, and Camilla has to respond without knowing the full reason for his approach.

Trust, Performance, and Betrayal

When Anselmo returns, he asks Lothario for the result. Lothario reports that Camilla has rejected his words, promises, and presents, returns the money untouched, and praises her as a model of virtue. Anselmo believes him and is reassured, but still asks Lothario to continue, now by writing verses for a supposed beloved named Chloris. Lothario agrees to compose them. He and Anselmo sustain the fiction together: Anselmo tells Camilla that Lothario is in love with another woman, while Camilla already knows from Lothario that this supposed attachment is a pretense and that the verses will praise her.

The friendship’s central failure is not a single break but the multiplication of concealed intentions. Anselmo’s confidence in Lothario leads him to create a test he cannot observe safely; after discovering one lie, he trusts Lothario’s renewed promise and accepts another reassuring account. Lothario’s initial effort to protect Camilla becomes a real pursuit, then a false report to Anselmo and a shared performance involving Chloris. The name “The Two Friends,” once earned by mutual accommodation, acquires an irony: Anselmo’s trust and Lothario’s loyalty no longer mean the same thing. The evidence establishes this transformation from intimacy into deception, while leaving the later consequences of their friendship beyond this account.