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 twenty-eight page
catechism translated from the Latin. Matrënga’s work
contains an introduction in Italian - the catechism itself -
being religious instruction on church doctrines in the form of
questions and answers, and an eight-line poem which constitutes
the earliest specimen of written verse in Albanian.
Albanian Literature in Translation
Early
Authors (16th - 18th centuries)
