Nicola Fago was a composer and a teacher (he was a teacher of counterpoint and composition at the Sant'Onofrio Conservatory and at the Pieta de'Turchini, where his pupils included composers such as Leonardo Leo, Francesco Feo and Nicolò Jommelli) and had a leading role in the musical life of Naples in the late 17th century and the first half of the 18th century, that period known as the 'Austrian Viceroyalty' spanning from Francesco Provenzale to Alessandro Scarlatti, leading composers of his era.

Il Faraone sommerso is the only one of the six oratorios composed by Fago between 1705 and 1711 whose music has survived; it has been preserved in two manuscripts, both hand-copied: one is held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, bearing the date 1709; the other in the Library of the Florence Conservatoire, held in the Basevi collection. The libretto has not survived and the name of the librettist is unknown; he was most likely a high-ranking prelate who adapted one of the many librettos of 'sacred dramas' dedicated to the episode of the liberation of the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery through the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. Even the time of composition is currently merely a hypothesis: if the date of 1709, as recorded in the Bodleian Library manuscript, is indeed the date of composition, the work was probably commissioned from Fago by Cardinal Francesco Pignatelli (Senise, 6 February 1652 - Naples, 5 December 1734) - a figure linked to the curia of Taranto - as part of a cycle of oratorios on biblical themes to be performed in the chapel of his palace in Naples during Lent that year.