LEO, Leonardo, one of the most distinguished composers of the Neapolitan school of music, was born at Naples in 1694. He studied for several years at Rome under the celebrated composer G. O. Pitoni, who was also the master of Feo and Durante. On his return to Naples in 1717, Leo was appointed chapel-master of the church Santa Maria Solitaria, and afterwards became master of the conservatory La Pietà, and finally of the conservatory of Sant'Onofrio, in which last school several of the greatest composers of the eighteenth century were his pupils. Some writers have stated that he died in the year 1742, but the Abate Giuseppe Bertini, in his Dizionario Storico, &c., 1814, says that Leo died in 1745. A later writer refers to the inscription on a portrait of Leo, preserved in the Royal College of Music at Naples, according to which Leo's death occurred in 1766. He died of apoplexy, and was found dead with his head leaning on his harpsichord. Alessandro Scarlatti, and his successors Durante, Leo, and Feo, share the honour of having founded the great Neapolitan school of musical composition. Leo was a voluminous composer for the church and for the theatre, and his music is always beautiful and expressive, as well as original and scientific. Dr Burney speaks highly of Leo's music, and alludes to the Miserere in eight real parts, which was performed by more than forty voices at the Pantheon, London, in 1781. That Miserere, for two choirs without orchestra, was published at Paris, by Choron, in 1808. (G. F. G.)