Maria Leotta is an Italian amateur researcher based in York, England. She is a host at York Trust Museum and York Minster, a volunteer for York Archeology Trust and a translator/interpreter working for several translation agencies.

• She graduated in Modern Foreign Languages and Literature with 1st Class Hons and she also has a Diploma in Religious Science. She got an MA in Translation Studies at the University of Sheffield .

• In 2018 she joined the team of The Missing Princes Project led by Philippa Langley MBE, who successfully led the discovery of King Richard III in a Leicester car park in 2012.

• After five years in the team, Maria Leotta published her first book, released on 12th December 2022. It is the first ever Italian biography of King Richard III. Her second book of short stories based on historical facts, "The Untold Stories", was published on 22nd August 2025,

• She is the Email Manager for both the Scottish Branch and the Yorkshire Branch of the Richard III Society.

• She regularly contributes to blogs and magazines with articles about the Middle Ages. She had two short stories published in two anthologies and two poems accepted for the White Rose Bards.

• She is fond of medieval music, reenactments, travelling, reading and writing.

• She is currently writing two more books including one of poetry and a non-fiction book about Ricardians writers and novelists.