The Leopard (1958) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

• Fabrizio Corbera: Add a description of this character.
• Maria Stella
• Carolina
• Francesco Paolo
• Concetta
• Tancredi Falconeri
• Bendicò
• Father Pirrone
• Pietro Russo
• Ciccio Ferrara
• Mademoiselle Dombreuil
• Calogero Sedàra
• Angelica
• Monsignor Trotolino
• Ciccio Genestra
• Onofrio Rotolo
• Toto Giambono
• Ciccio Tumeo
• Count Carlo Cavriaghi
• Giuseppe Garibaldi
• Ferdinand II
• Francis II
• Victor Emmanuel II

Quotes edit see section history

• “Unless we ourselves take a hand now, they'll foist a Republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. p.22”

  Tancredi

• “While there's death there's hope. p.53”

  The Prince

• “I am most grateful to the Goverment for having thought of me for the Senate and I ask you to express my most sincere gratitude to them, But I cannot accept. I am a member of the old ruling class, inevitably compromised with the Bourbon regieme, and bound to it by chains of decency if not of affection. I belong to an unlucky generation, swung between the old world and the new, and I find myself ill at ease in both. p.133”

  The Prince

• “You see, Don Pietrino, the "nobles", as you call them, aren't as easy to understand. They live in a world of their own, created not directly by God, but by themselves during centuries of highly specialised experiences, of their own worries and joys; they have a very strong collective memory, so they're put out or pleased by things which wouldn't matter to you and me, but which to them seem vitally connected with their heritage of memories, hopes caste fears. p.143”

  Father Pirrone

• “We were the Leopards and Lions; those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals and sheep, we'll go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth. p.137”

  The Prince

• “Love. Of course, love. Flames for a year, ashes for thirty.”

  The Prince

• “A man of forty-five can consider himself still young till the moment comes when he realises that he has children old enough to fall in love. pg. 43”

  Author, concerning The Prince

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Breakfast at Tiffany's, and followed by Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids.

Preceded by The Remains of the Day, and followed by The Moviegoer .

Preceded by Hawaii, and followed by The Chapman Report.

Preceded by Frankenstein, and followed by The Catcher in the Rye.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Vittorio Frosini
2. Archibald Colquhoun (Translator)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PQ4843.O53 G313 1958
• Dewey: 853.914

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Historical
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Wikipedia article: The Leopard (Italian: Il Gattopardo) is a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa that chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento. Published posthumously in 1958, after two rejections by the leading Italian publishing houses Mondadori and Einaudi, it became the top-selling novel in Italian history and is considered one of the most important novels in modern Italian literature.
• Book Review from eNotes.com: THE LEOPARD concerns the passing of an era. It focuses on the impact of the Risorgimento--the reunification of Italy--on Sicilian society. Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, recognizes that his class is doomed by its own decadence and by the rude energy of the new order. He knows, too, that the new order, whatever its pretensions, will bring with it no real change for Sicily’s masses. A rapacious middle class will elbow aside the old families, which will succumb to a kind of moral and social entropy.
• Book Review from the New York Times: Sicily is the key to Italy, as Goethe once wrote, and one novel is the key to Sicily: “The Leopard,” Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s masterpiece. This tale of the decline and fall of the house of Salina, a family of Sicilian aristocrats, first appeared in 1958, but it reads more like the last 19th-century novel, a perfect evocation of a lost world.
• Roger Ebert comments: "The Leopard" was written by the only man who could have written it, directed by the only man who could have directed it, and stars the only man who could have played its title character. The first of these claims is irrefutable, because Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, a Sicilian aristocrat, wrote the story out of his own heart and based it on his great-grandfather. Whether another director could have done a better job than Luchino Visconti is doubtful; the director was himself a descendant of the ruling class that the story eulogizes. But that Burt Lancaster was the correct actor to play Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, was at the time much doubted; that a Hollywood star had been imported to grace this most European--indeed, Italian--indeed, Sicilian--masterpiece was a scandal.

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Leopard (1963) (IMDb): Italian film staring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale