Giuseppe di Lampedusa		  
The Leopard		

Giuseppe di Lampedusa: Introduction

The Leopard has been prescribed repeatedly for school study since it arrived in Australia in translation from the original Italian some thirty years ago. The work was published in Italy in somewhat unusual circumstances. 

The Leopard was the only substantial piece written by Lampedusa and was released posthumously. The author, a Sicilian prince, was the grandson of the hero of the novel, Don Fabrizio. Over the years Lampedusa was a well-known figure in the literary world and salons of Palermo but he had not burst into print and his fame was local.

The Leopard was a life¹s work ‹ a one-off ‹ and in a sense is family biography, fictionalised and presented in the form of fiction, with for example, the dialogue imagined and crafted by the writer.

Lampedusa had considered writing the novel for years, but only tackled the task seriously when he realised that he had terminal cancer.

He sent his unsigned manuscript to a friend who forgot it for a time and it was despatched to a publisher only after the prince¹s death. There are stories that publication was further delayed because major publishers in Italy wondered why such a fine work came to them in such an unusual way. They suspected that for some reason an established author was trying to palm off a fine work anonymously.

After publication, The Leopard, was immediately acknowledged as a masterpiece. On its first level then, The Leopard is family memoir or history, by a grandson of his famous ancestor about whom he had heard so much over the years.

On a second level, the novel is historical. Most of the action is set in the years, 186062 during which most of the divided Italian states were unified and Sicily was brought into a united Italy.

We see one view of the Risorgimento through the eyes of an intelligent an intelligent Sicilian magnate.

In the years prior to unification, Sicily was part of the kingdom of Naples, ruled by a branch of the French Bourbon family and a byword for corrupt, incompetent government.

On a third level the novel recreates with a brilliant touch the life-style of a dead society and evokes the luxurious decay of the Sicilian grandees just before the end of their feudal power. 

The whole is suffused with the blinding light of the Sicilian sun. 

There are ideas and themes running through the story. The themes emerge through memories, reflections and arguments in the novel, e.g. those discussions between the conservative Jesuit, Father Pirone, private chaplain to the prince and Don Fabrizio himself.

There is the reality of social change: we see a dominatn class, the feudal landowning aristocracy, losing its traditional power to new men. In the novel the new men are seen in Angelica¹s father, Don Calogero, who represents a new arriviste wealthy upper-middle class. Don Calogero is mayor of Donnafugata, traditionally the Lampedusa¹s rural base.

The family had a town house in Palermo.

Lampedusa explores the problem: How does a traditional magnate such as Don Fabrizio faced a social and political revolution. Thanks to his brilliant but impoverished young nephew, Tancredi, Fabrizio learns: ŒIf we want things to stay the same, uncle, things are going to have to change¹

This is the most important line in the novel. Tancredi means that if our social class is to retain some real political power and social standing we will have to adapt to the revolution.

It is futile to confront the revolution. 

The dilemma is: does an ancient aristocratic family like the Salina resist the revolution, or does it seek to co-operate with its more moderate members in defence of property against more radical social levellers.

Fabrizio finally comes around the the second course of action: a realistic accommodation with the more moderate elements of the political revolution. 

The impoverished Tancredi is married to the rich heiress, Angelica, whose father has many of the repulsive (to Don Fabrizio) attitudes of the money