Gaetano Latilla (12 January 1711 – 15 January 1788) was an Italian opera composer born in Bari and trained at the Loreto Conservatory in Naples. He began writing comic operas for Naples’s Teatro dei Fiorentini in 1732 and achieved wide fame with Gismondo (1737) and Madama Ciana (1738), both of which became staples of the Italian comic-opera touring repertory through the 1740s and early 1750s. He also composed opera seria, beginning with a setting of Demofoonte in 1738, and his Siroe, re di Persia was premiered in 1740.

Regarded as the leading Neapolitan opera composer of the generation before his nephew Niccolò Piccinni, Latilla helped define the conventions of Italian opera buffa that would shape comic opera across Europe. Though largely eclipsed by later composers, his works are increasingly revived today by singers and ensembles specializing in the Neapolitan Baroque repertoire.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaetano_Latilla