Da Ponte's librettos for L'arbore di Diana and Così fan tutte were the only ones of his not taken from an existing plot.

The opera's premiere on 1 October 1787 marked a visit to Vienna of the niece of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, the Archduchess Maria Teresa, who was on her way to Dresden to marry Prince Anton Clemens of Saxony in person (they had been married by proxy in Florence the month before).

The opera was revived and recorded in Valencia in 2008 at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía.

It has also been revived in Barcelona in 2009 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, at the Minnesota Opera in 2017 conducted by Michael Christie, and at New England Conservatory in 2023.

The music consists of "an amalgam of through-composed conversations and encounters, punctuated by brief songs and ariettas"; the plot concerns the goddess Diana's attempts to defend her island as a stronghold of chastity.