The French version of this late Rossini opera was a partial rewrite of the composer's 1820 Italian opera, "Maometto II", but with the same story and similar if differently named characters, in the setting of the Turks' 1470 conquest of the Venetian colony of Negroponte. That original version had premiered in Naples on 3 December 1820 – six years before the Missolonghi siege and massacre. The original "Maometto" was not well received, neither in Naples nor in Venice where Rossini tried out a somewhat revised version in 1823, this time with a happy ending using music from his own "La donna del lago" at the conclusion.