Leona Florentino Leona Florentino was born in Vigan on April 19, 1849 to a rich family. Her parents were Marcelino and Isabel Florentino. She married Elias de los Reyes and had five children by him, the eldest of whom was Isabelo de los Reyes. Florentino gained international prominence when her poems in Iloko were exhibited at the Exposicion General de Filipinas in 1887 and at the International Exposition in Paris in 1899 that marked the centennial of the French Revolution. Isabelo de los Reyes paid homage to his mother when he included her poems in his El Folklore Filipino. Included in this work were Florentino’s congratulatory and erotic poems in Ilocano. Most of the congratulatory poems for birthdays and weddings were usually in acrostic form. The foremost Ilocano poetess died on October 4, 1884 at the age of 35.
1887
The Exposicion General de Filipinas in Madrid featured Spanish poems by Leona Florentino, then the foremost Filipino woman poet in Spanish.
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