Verdi may be the composer with the best-known troubles with the censors of Italian theater, but this Donizetti work was actually banned by the king of Naples, even after the censors had passed it. (The depiction of the martyrdom of early Christian saints was considered inappropriate material for entertainment.) The angry composer left for Paris, where by 1840 he had produced a revision, written for the French taste, with different recitatives, a new finale for the first act, new arias and trios, and the inevitable ballet. Eugène Scribe wrote a French libretto that was closer to Corneille's original play, placing at the center of the drama the characters of the two lovers, Pauline and Poliuto. Donizetti took great pains to suit his music to the new French text; the opera was expanded from three acts into four; and the drama became both more static and more powerful. Opera houses have presented both versions since then, but the original Italian one has appeared slightly more frequently.

The first scene is one of Donizetti's most strongly atmospheric. The Christians meet secretly in a cave. As a hint of the fate that awaits them, a Roman-style march lurks under their meditative hymn, suggesting the march to the arena where they will be killed by wild animals. The subsequent meditative, sonorous prayer during which Poliuto is baptized, and which Paolina overhears, is followed by a particularly limpid melody for the deeply affected Paolina. The ensemble that ends the first act is noteworthy, beginning with a slow, suspenseful melody sung first by Severo, then by Paolina. Poliuto's sweeping melody leads the rest of the voices into the various lines of the ensemble; dramatic recitative passages conclude when Poliuto overturns the altar, and his stretta leads into the fiery final tutti section. The hushed, menacing aria and chorus of Callistene and the Roman priests in the second act is quite effective, as is the final duet of Paolina and Poliuto, in which she expresses her newfound faith in sparkling trills while he sings of the joys of Heaven in an expansive melody. The concluding ensemble, if not one of Donizetti's most original, makes a well-crafted and satisfying finale.

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