Back at the end of May, when I was in Palermo, I was fortunate to witness the filming of a new version of Il Gattopardo (or The Leopard), the novel by Giuseppe Tomaso di Lampedusa for Netflix. The Visconti original from 1963 with Burt Lancaster as the nobile Prince Don Fabrizio, will be hard to…
Tag: the leopard
The Leopard, Sicily’s Epic Novel
Prince Don Fabrizio Salina faced a new world in 1860 during the “unification” of Italy. He is the protagonist of “Il Gattopardo (The Leopard),” the posthumously published 1958 novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Burt Lancaster (pictured) starred in the epic movie by Luchino Visconti in 1963. If you haven’t seen it (or read the…
A Superb and Heterogeneous Civilization
“For more than twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of a superb and heterogeneous civilization, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own,” wrote Giuseppe di Tomasi Lampedusa in his novel “Il Gattopardo,” or “The Leopard.” Published posthumously in 1958, the story about a prince and his family…