The Leopard

by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa, 1958

The Leopard strings together a series of wonderful scenes and images while reflecting ironically on the shift in power from the old Sicilian aristocracy to the new bourgeoisie after the Italian risorgimento. It has a mood of quiet contemplation, even sadness, as massive social and political changes gently overturn the lives of its central characters. Don Fabrizio is the last Prince Salina, though he knows his time has come. He is a man of the old world, with its families, traditions, biases and connections. The new world, he knows, is a world where tradition means little, but crass new ways of making money are the future. He sees the follies of his class, and retreats to the science of astronomy to get away from them. Yet he is part of that class, and not of the new world.

  Being a man of vision and appetite, Fabrizio supports his favourite nephew, the charismatic Tancredi, in marrying Angelica, the beautiful daughter of the ambitious peasant who is rising in the new world. Although Fabrizio despises her father, he dotes on Angelica both for her physical beauty and for the manners she has learned at a finishing school in Naples. She and Tancredi will lead the Salina family into the new world while the older folks fade away. Fabrizio is smart enough to turn down a position in the new Senate and recommend Angelica’s father in his place.

  And the old rulers fade away into senility, decrepitude and death. The scenes of Fabrizio’s sisters fighting and trying to protect their collection of holy relics from the new rules of the church are tragi-comic. But the death of Fabrizio is slow and sad, as he falls ill on a long train ride returning from Naples back to his home in Sicily. Unable to make it home, his family stops to rest in a hotel, where he hears the birds on the beach and feels the sea breezes before losing consciousness.

  Giuseppe di Lampedusa, who comes from the same class as Fabrizio and wrote the novel as a sort of homage to his grandfather, describes the loss of the old ways, but he doesn’t romanticize them. He notes Fabrizio’s disgust when he has to meet with his smelly tenants, and Fabrizio locks his long-time hunting companion with the dogs when Fabrizio gives him information that he doesn’t want out too early. He rationalizes his visits to his mistress and brings along his priest for cover. His sensuality comes through in his admiration for Angelica, as well as in the food at his table. The dessert castle that his family eats away at, and the macaroni he serves to guests at his family estate are wonderful images. They fit into the satirical depiction of the elegant Sicilian aristocracy, which reminded me of the ironic dialogues and superficial characters of a Jane Austin novel.

  Irony runs through the whole novel. While understanding that the change of class is inevitable, Fabrizio sees the unification plebiscite as a farce. Everyone votes in favour because the alternative is worse, but no one supports it, and the votes are fraudulently counted, bringing the Italian nation into a fraudulent existence. The novelist describes two long, difficult trips in the stifling heat of southern Italy, representing perhaps the difficult transitions that Italy faces as it changes from the old ruling class to the new.

  And in spite of the change in the ruling class, nothing really changes – the agricultural aristocracy is replaced by middle-class landowners who continue to exploit the working peasantry. And while I felt a little sadness at the passing of an intelligent and memorable figure, it’s clear that his time has passed, and who can really live in an agricultural feudalism besides the princes? But perhaps the greater regret is that it has passed to a crass and materialistic new layer. The nouveau riche will bring Italy into the industrial age, so it’s not quite right to say that nothing has changed. But inequality and exploitation remain, whether under the elegance of the aristocracy or the cruder arts of the new ruling class.