Girolamo de Rada

Girolamo de Rada was born on 29 November 1814 in Macchia Albanese, in the province of Cosenza, Italy. He belonged to the Arbëreshë community, the descendants of the Albanian refugees who settled in southern Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries. He attended the Albanian college of Saint Adrian in San Demetrio Corone, where he developed a passion for his Albanian heritage and culture. He later studied law at the University of Naples, but his main interest was literature and folklore. He published his first poem, Songs of Milosao, in 1836, under the Italian title Poesie albanesi del secolo XV. He also published other poems and historical works in Albanian, such as Songs of Serafina Thopia, The Unfortunate Skanderbeg, and The History of Scanderbeg. He was a delegate at the Congress of Monastir in 1908, where he contributed to the standardization of the Albanian alphabet. He also founded the first Albanian-language newspaper, The Albanian of Italy, in 1848. He was a prominent figure of the Albanian Renaissance, a cultural and national awakening movement that aimed to preserve and promote the Albanian language, literature, history and identity. He died on 28 February 1903 in San Demetrio Corone, where he was buried. [1](^1^) [2](^2^) [3](^3^) [4](^4^) [5](^5^)