Il Gattopardo

Fabrizio Corbera di Salina, a prince and astronomer, observes the heavens and mankind with the same impassive precision. Whilst the Thousand land in Sicily and history is set in motion once more, life unfolds between the palace in Palermo and the villa at Donnafugata: the morning rosary, the June heat, the conversations that measure the distance between what dies and what is born. At Don Fabrizio’s side is his nephew Tancredi, who senses which way the wind is blowing and makes the most of it. And then there is Concetta, his stern and silent daughter; Don Calogero Sedara, the mayor who moves with the enterprising stride of the new bourgeoisie; and Angelica, a beauty who lights up the drawing rooms and forges a new alliance. To the rhythm of the seasons, the private narrative intertwines with the public one: the old order recedes, expediency dictates the etiquette of power, words change so that nothing truly changes. The Prince’s gaze recognises, in the actions of men, the same laws that govern the constellations: transformation, finitude, disenchantment. And when an emissary from the new Kingdom comes to offer a seat, the reply he receives is the clearest portrait of a land: proud, weary, aware of its own immobility. Without fanfare, Tomasi di Lampedusa entrusts to the perfection of the sentence the tale of an end and a beginning: a novel in which politics becomes social custom, and social custom becomes destiny. “We were the Leopard, the Lions; those who will replace us will be the jackals, the hyenas; and all of us—Leopards, jackals and sheep alike—will continue to believe ourselves to be the salt of the earth.” Set in post-war Italy, The Leopard looks back to 1860 to recount the metamorphosis of a country: the elegy of a class in decline and the irruption of the new, under the crystal-clear banner of political opportunism.