Poliuto is a tragedia lirica, or tragic opera, by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvatore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after Pierre Corneille's play Polyeucte (1641-42). It was composed in 1838 and first performed on 30 November 1848 at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples.
When the opera was in rehearsal in 1838, it was banned by the censors because it showed the martyrdom of a saint on stage. Donizetti revised and expanded it to a French text for the Paris Opéra as Les martyrs. Poliuto was not performed in its original form until after Donizetti's death.