The Leopard

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Poi, nel 1963 il film del conte Luchino Visconti. E io credo che matrimonio tra la pagina e lo schermo più perfetto di questo sia raro. As I started reading this outstanding book, I felt I am more than an eyewitness - as reader - after a specific part of the Introductory words was stamped unto my thoughts – those being words as imprinted by the author of the novel himself in a letter sent to one of his very few, closely intimate friends, Enrico Merlo ≪ I would kindly ask you to read it carefully (*the manuscript of the novel itself) because every word has been weighed and many things have not been said clearly, but only by half. Needless to say that the "prince of Salina" is the prince of Lampedusa, Giulio Fabrizio, my great-grandfather, so everything is real, shaded in its authenticity: his stature, fondness of mathematics (*and astronomy), false violence, skepticism, wife, German mother, refusal to be a senator. The father Pirrone is also real, even the name. I think I made them both smarter than they really were. ≫

The Leopard ( Italian: Il Gattopardo [il ˌɡattoˈpardo]) is a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa that chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento. Published posthumously in 1958 by Feltrinelli, after two rejections by the leading Italian publishing houses Mondadori and Einaudi, it became the top-selling novel in Italian history and is considered one of the most important novels in modern Italian literature. In 1959, it won Italy's highest award for fiction, the Strega Prize. [1] In 2012, The Guardian named it as one of "the 10 best historical novels". [2] The novel was made into an award-winning 1963 film of the same name, directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon.

Donnafugata – the fictional name for the town Santa Margherita di Belice (near Palma di Montechiaro) and the Palazzo Filangeri-Cutò. [23] Both the palace and adjacent Mother Church were destroyed by an earthquake in 1968. Certainly, I read the whole Preface – it was very enlightening in some key details -- but this above text was enough for me. I knew immediately I would really read it with attentive care, just because it caught me instantly as in whirlpool and drew me to that moment when the “earthquake” – in a metaphorical sense, of course (God forbid of Mount Etna!)– was shaking the land of Sicily, in the spring of 1860.

The book opens with a scene in which the prince of Salina, Don Fabrizio, is reading about the Mysteries of the Passion (funnily, this time of the year it happens to be the Passion week, too) and rare words are brought out on the lips of the audience (his whole, large family) to this prayer’s reading: love, purity, death. Symbolically this is the message of the whole novel – everything that came up into life will end up into death, and the destiny of the noble house of Salina is to follow the same line of existence. Pragmatically there is a lot of apparent changes – though in truth these are harsh changes for the family of Don Fabrizio – as there is a change of political regime (some bit of fights under Garibaldi assault on Sicily, a new king with a bigger Kingdom (of Italy), some free-faked elections, etc), of social relationships, of family extension by uniting with people of a lower rank, of the rustic landscape where the peasants are living and setting their accounts in a very direct, but also cheating manner, etc John Gatta, Storrs (2004). Making Nature Sacred. Oxford University Press. p.191. ISBN 0198036949 . Retrieved 21 June 2014. un testament redactat cu două luni mai devreme, în 24 mai, autorul ceruse familiei discreție maximă: „Doresc, ba nu, VREAU, ca la moartea mea să nu se facă nici un fel de anunț, nici în ziare, nici în vreun alt mod. Funeraliile trebuie să fie cît mai simple posibil, la o oră incomodă. Nu doresc nici o floare şi nimeni care să mă conducă în afară de soția mea, de fiul meu adoptiv şi logodnica acestuia”. Nu sînt sigur că dorința i-a fost satisfăcută întru totul. Liturghia funerară (recviemul) a avut loc în Basilica del Sacro Cuore di Gesù din Roma, iar scriitorul a fost înmormîntat în cavoul familiei din Cimitero dei Cappuccini din Palermo.Skidelsky, William (12 May 2012). "The 10 best historical novels". The Guardian . Retrieved 14 May 2017. The women rose slowly to their feet, their oscillating skirts as they withdrew baring bit by bit the naked figures from mythology painted all over the milky depths of the tiles. Only an Andromeda remained covered by the soutane of Father Pirrone, still deep in extra prayer, and it was some time before she could sight the silvery Perseus swooping down to her aid and her kiss…