The Leopard

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896–1957) was an Italian nobleman, writer, and intellectual best known for his novel The Leopard (Il Gattopardo). Tomasi was born on December 23, 1896, in Palermo, Sicily, into an ancient and aristocratic family. He was the last Prince of Lampedusa and Duke of Palma di Montechiaro. His father, Giulio Maria Tomasi, was a stern and traditional Sicilian nobleman, while his mother, Beatrice Mastrogiovanni Tasca Filangeri di Cutò, was an intellectual woman who greatly influenced his early education. Raised in a privileged but somewhat isolated environment, Tomasi was deeply attached to the family’s grand estates and the traditions of Sicilian nobility, motifs that would later pervade his writing. Educated primarily at home, he developed a love for literature, history, and languages. He was particularly influenced by the works of Stendhal, Proust, and Shakespeare. In his early adulthood, he briefly attended the University of Rome but was soon called to serve in World War I. Captured during the war, he was imprisoned in Hungary before escaping and returning to Italy.

After the war, Tomasi lived a relatively quiet life, traveling extensively throughout Europe, particularly in France and England. In 1932, he married Alexandra Wolff-Stomersee, a Latvian-born psychoanalyst, but the marriage was often strained due to their differing temperaments and interests. Though he spent much of his life as a private scholar, he never sought a public intellectual career. During World War II, the Tomasi family suffered significant losses. Their ancestral palace in Palermo was bombed, symbolizing the fading grandeur of the Sicilian aristocracy. These personal and historical changes deeply influenced his literary vision, but he did not begin writing fiction seriously until late in life. In the 1950s, he joined a literary circle in Palermo, where he found a small but supportive community of writers and critics, including Francesco Orlando and Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi (his adopted son and literary heir).

In the mid-1950s, Tomasi finally began writing his only novel, Il Gattopardo. The book is a semi-autobiographical work, inspired by the life of his great-grandfather, Don Giulio Fabrizio Tomasi, a Sicilian prince who witnessed the upheaval of the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy in the 19th century. The novel follows Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, a proud but pragmatic aristocrat who observes the transformation of Sicily with a mixture of resignation and nostalgia. The Leopard faced significant obstacles to publication. Tomasi submitted the manuscript to two major Italian publishers, Mondadori and Einaudi, both of whom rejected it. Their reasoning was that the novel was too melancholic, too nostalgic, and not in line with the more socially progressive literature of postwar Italy. Deeply disappointed, Tomasi never saw his novel in print; he died of lung cancer on July 23, 1957, at the age of 60.

After his death, Tomasi’s widow and his literary friends, including Giorgio Bassani, a respected writer and editor, championed The Leopard. Bassani, recognizing its literary significance, facilitated its publication through Feltrinelli in 1958. The novel was an immediate success, winning the prestigious Strega Prize in 1959 and receiving widespread acclaim from critics and readers alike. It was quickly translated into multiple languages and remains one of the best-selling Italian novels of all time. The Leopard was later adapted into a film by the renowned director Luchino Visconti in 1963, starring Burt Lancaster as Prince Salina, Alain Delon as Tancredi, and Claudia Cardinale as Angelica. The film, much like the novel, captured the grandeur and decline of Sicilian aristocracy and is considered one of the greatest Italian films ever made. Tomasi’s reputation as a writer has grown considerably since his death, and he is now recognized as one of the most important literary figures of 20th-century Italy.