Sicilian Twilight

Abstract

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) is one of the great classics of modem Italian literature. First published in 1958, a year after the author's death, the novel is set in Sicily and covers a period of almost three decades, from 1860 to 1888. The overarching theme of the book is the dissolution of the Sicily of the Bourbons and its reinvention as part of the unified Kingdom of Italy. Lampedusa, himself a Sicilian aristocrat, follows this cultural and political transformation through the eyes of the Leopard, Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, head of one of the most ancient and prominent noble families of Palermo. Indeed, it is understood that Lampedusa drew on his own paternal great-grandfather as a model for Don Fabrizio. Lampedusa's historical novel was translated into English in 1960, and in 1963 it reached a still wider audience as a result of Luchino Visconti's film, in which Burt Lancaster starred as Don Fabrizio, Alain Delon took the role of Tancredi Falconeri, and Claudia Cardinale played Angelica Sedara.