According to Michael Talbot in The Vivaldi Compendium, for its time Giusti's libretto "evinces a rare degree of sympathy for the Mexican emperor and his queen Mirena."

At the premiere the role of Mirena was sung by Anna Girò, who was a protégée of Vivaldi and whom he considered his "indispensable" prima donna.

Unusually for Vivaldi, who preferred castrato singers with contralto voices, he wrote two roles for soprano castrati—Fernando (Cortés) and Asperano, the Mexican general.

After World War II, the Sing-Akademie's library was captured by the Red Army and taken to the Soviet Union, eventually ending up in Kyiv, now in Ukraine.

[4] Following the restitution of the Sing-Akademie collection to Germany, the fragmentary score of Motezuma (the beginning of the first act and large parts of third are missing) was identified by the musicologist Steffen Voss [de].

In mid-September 2005, the injunction was lifted which allowed the first staged performance in modern times to take place on 21 September 2005 in Düsseldorf, Germany, as part of the Altstadtherbst [de] festival.