The Leopard

Published posthumously in 1958, this novel, set in Sicily in the second half of the 19th century with a concluding chapter in 1910, was nominated by The Observer as one of the ten greatest historical novels. It has much in common with the fiction of the interwar period as it deals with political upheaval and social change. The central character is a prince, heraldically referred to as the Leopard.

The author, Giuseppe Tomasi (born 23 December 1896), son of the Prince of Lampedusa, based this novel on his family's experience of the erosion of its traditional influence on Sicilian society as Garibaldi's movement brought about a restructuring of politics that led to the unification of Italy. The description of loss and decay is reflective of the huge impact that the First World War (and indeed the Second World War) had on Italian society. Tomasi had served in the Italian army in the First World War, having been conscripted in 1915. In late 1917 he was captured during the Battle of Caparetto and was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp at Szombathely in Hungary. Nearing his death in 1957, he wrote in a letter of instruction to his family that his fellow prisoner, Guido Lajolo, who had emigrated to Brazil, should be notified of his death.

The destruction of human life is a motif throughout the novel. In an early scene the body of a young solider had been found in the garden:
“They had found him lying face downwards in the thick clover, his face covered in blood and vomit, crawling with ants, his nails dug into the soil; a pile of purplish intestines had formed a puddle under his bandoleer.”
A month later, the Prince recalled the soldier when viewing “six baby lambs, the last of the year’s litter, with their heads lolling pathetically above the big gash through which their life-blood had flowed a few yards before. Their bellies had been slashed open too and iridescent intestines hung out.”

Another interesting feature of the novel is the author’s flourishing use of military language. It is scattered throughout the text, almost echoing the actual military engagements going on outside the Prince’s estate:
“But the defence forces of his inner calm always on the alert in the Prince were already hurrying to his aid, with the musketry of law, the artillery of history.”