Pjetër Bogdani (ca. 1630-1689), known in Italian as Pietro Bogdano, is the most original writer of early literature in Albania. He is author of the Cuneus Prophetarum (The Band of the Prophets), 1685, the first prose work of substance written originally in Albanian (i.e. not a translation)...

Pjetër Budi (1566-1622), known in Italian as Pietro Budi, was the author of four religious works in Albanian. He was born in the village of Gur i Bardhë in the Mati region of the north-central Albanian mountains. He could not have benefited from much formal education in his native region, and trained for the priesthood at the so-called Illyrian College of Loretto...

Gjon Buzuku, a northern Albanian Catholic cleric, who probably lived in or around Venice, was the author of the first book written and published in Albanian, a 188-page translation of the Catholic missal. Since the frontispiece and the first sixteen pages of the only copy of the book we possess...

Italo-Albanian writer and poet Nicola Chetta (1740?-1803), Alb. Nikollë Keta, was born in Contessa Entellina (Alb. Kundisa), the oldest Albanian settlement in Sicily, founded between 1450 and 1467. He was educated at the Greek seminary in Palermo. In 1777, Chetta himself became ...

Yahya bey Dukagjini (ca. 1498-ca. 1582) was a sixteenth-century poet of Albanian origin who wrote in Turkish. He is known in Turkish as Dukagin-zâde Yahyâ bey or Taslicali Yahyâ bey, i.e. Yahya Bey of Dukagjini or Yahya Bey of Tashlidja (Pljevlja) A scion of the Dukagjini tribe inhabiting...

Lekë Matrënga (1567-1619), known in Italian as Luca Matranga, was an Orthodox cleric of the Italo-Albanian community of Sicily. He was also the author of the second major work of early Albanian literature entitled E mbsuame e krështerë, Rome 1592 (Christian Doctrine), which is a...

Sulejman Naibi, also known as Sulejman Ramazani, was a gifted Albanian poet of the Muslim tradition, a contemporary of Nezim Frakulla. He was born in Berat where he lived most of his life and died in 1771 [1185 A.H.]. Little else is known of him except that he got married in Elbasan and...

Italo-Albanian lyric poet Giuseppe Serembe (1844-1901), known in Albanian as Zef Serembe, was a restless soul destined to bear the heavy burden of human suffering. The atmosphere of despair and tragedy that haunted him throughout his life surfaces time and time again in his verse. Serembe was...

Variboba was born in San Giorgio Albanese (Alb. Mbuzati) in the province of Cosenza to a family originally from the Mallakastra region of southern Albania. He studied at the Corsini seminary in San Benedetto Ullano, a centre of learning and training for the Byzantine Greek priesthood...

Constantine of Berat (ca. 1745 - ca. 1825), known in Albanian as Kostandin Berati or Kostë Berati, is thought to have been an Orthodox monk and writer from Berat. Some experts doubt his existence, as an author at least. He is said at any rate to have possessed a manuscript from 1764 to 1822...