First performed at the King's Theatre, the London home of Italian opera, on December 9, 1721, Floridante was the second full-length opera by Handel to be produced under the auspices of the Royal Academy. The Academy had been set up two years earlier by a group of noblemen with the express intention of promoting Italian opera. Handel was invited to become musical director, and it was he who was also responsible for bringing some of the greatest Italian singers of the day to join the company. Floridante is cast in the standard three-act opera seria format that was then popular. Each act generally follows the pattern of an alternation of secco (dry) recitatives, which serve to move the plot forward, and da capo arias, in which the action is temporarily suspended to allow the expression of a character's emotional state. In keeping with opera seria conventions there are only six characters, and no chorus. Ensemble numbers are few, though some of the finest music in the opera is found in the duet "Ah mia cara," which ends Act I, and the Act II duet "Fuor di periglio."

The text is by the Academy's poet and librettist, Paolo Rolli, who based it on an earlier Venetian libretto. Most commentators have severely criticized Rolli's work for its poor quality and dramatic inconsistencies. The plot is set in the Middle East: Oronte (bass), who has usurped the throne of Persia, has fallen in love with his adopted daughter Elmira (alto), whom he had previously promised to the heroic warrior Floridante (originally, a castrato part). Rossanne (soprano), another of Oronte's daughters, has fallen in love with Timante (castrato), the captive Prince of Tyre.

The opera revolves around the political and romantic complexities that result from these relationships. In Floridante, Handel largely abandons the grand heroic style he employed in Radamisto (1720), his previous opera for the Royal Academy, in favor of lighter, more mellifluous writing. Although trumpets and drums are included in the scoring, they are used only sparingly, in ceremonial scenes; for the most part, Handel makes use of light instrumental textures. It has been suggested that the composer was at this stage influenced by the less complex and tuneful—but greatly successful—operatic style of Giovanni Bononcini, whose Astarto (1720) had been one of the Academy's greatest successes. The original production of Floridante ran to 15 performances; included among the cast was the great castrato Senesino in the role of the eponymous hero, as well as Giuseppe Boschi, one of the leading basses of the day, as Oronte. The opera was revived with several changes in the following season, when it received a further nine performances.

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