 Leone was a member of the renowned Portaleone family, which boasted many famous doctors and scientists.He, however, was the first of his family to garner literary fame, as the author of some 15 plays, most of them written in Italian, as well as poetry, and even a comedy, written in Hebrew, "A Comedy of Betrothal" (צחות בדיחותא דקידושין) the earliest surviving work of its kind in the Hebrew language.He is now most remembered for having written the first ever treatise on the art of stage direction, which defines a precise methodology of play production, from the selection of a text through its performance.