The Italian libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire's 1734 play Adélaïde du Guesclin.
The opera premiered at La Fenice in Venice on 1 May 1799 with Caterina Angiolini in the title role.
He wrote in a letter some months before the play's premiere, "I have packed in as much I could of love, jealousy, fury, propriety, probity, and grandeur of soul.
[3] In the years following its premiere it was performed in several Italian cities, including Verona, Modena, Pisa, and Sienna (sometimes titled Carlo duca di Vandomo o sia L'Adelaide or simply Adelaide).
Outside of Italy, the opera was performed in the original Italian in Vienna and Prague in 1802, in Dresden in 1807, and in Amsterdam in 1817.