Leone Leoni was born in Verona on 25 April 1897. Enrolled in the Italian Rabbinical College of Florence, he obtained the title of Maskil in 1914-1915. From January 1928 to 1951 he was rabbi of Ferrara. He was in the Synagogue on 21 September 1941, when a fascist squad led by Asvero Gravelli broke into the Via Mazzini 95 complex, destroying the two premises that the Community reserved for worship. When the rabbi came forward to ask for explanations and to try to stop that devastation, he got two slaps in the face from the fascists. From 1952 to 1961 he was rabbi of Venice. He died in Rome on 3 October 1964 and was buried in Milan, in the Cimitero Maggiore. His son Aron (Ferrara, 1932 - Milan, 2010), born to Gemma Ravenna, was a scholar of the Spanish and Portuguese Sephardic diaspora, especially emigration to Ferrara. In addition to numerous articles, he published The Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Nation in the Eastern States (Rimini, Luisé, 1992).