The Leopard

From Conservapedia

Il Gattopardo is a 1958 historical novel published by Guiseppe di Lampedusa. Set during the Wars of of Italian Unification, it remains the most successful work of fiction in the history of Italian literature.

Plot

Most of the novel is set during the time of the Risorgimento, specifically during the period when Giuseppe Garibaldi, the hero of Italian unification, swept through Sicily with his forces, known as The Thousand. The plot focuses upon the aristocratic Salina family, which is headed by Prince Fabrizio, a stoic womanizer who rules his family with an iron fist. As the novel opens in 1860, Garibaldi's Redshirts have landed on the Sicilian coast and are pressing inland to overthrow the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Part I

May 1860

As the Salina family completes their evening rosary, Prince Fabrizio di Salina reflects upon finding the decomposed corpse of a Bourbon soldier in his lemon orchard, and begins to awaken to the coming disintegration of his world. Deeply disturbed, he decides to leave the dinner table and visit his mistress in Palermo. The entire family knows where he is going and his wife, Princess Maria Stella, screams his name in impotent grief as the coach leaves the palace gates.

Upon his return, Prince Fabrizio coolly appraises Garibaldi's supporters, estate managers and accountants who have been embezzling from the Salinas for years. They promise him, however, that they will protect him from any reprisals. Unconvinced, the Prince considers how to best ride out the coming storm. Although he continues to view King Francis II as his lawful sovereign, the Prince is unwilling and unable to lift a finger in his defense. Instead he allows events to take their course, preferring to focus on astronomy with his friend and chaplain, Father Pirrone.

Prince Tancredi di Falconeri, the son of Prince Fabrizio's sister, could not be more different from his uncle. Tancredi is handsome, charismatic, almost penniless, and a supporter of Garibaldi. Tancredi vainly tries to persuade the Prince to support King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, expressing fear that if the nobility refuses to ally with him, Garibaldi will declare a Republic. Although the Prince disagrees with his nephew's politics, he views Tancredi's decision to join the Redshirts in the mountains as the Salina family's only opportunity to preserve their tottering influence. As a result, he silences all criticism of his nephew.

Part II

August 1860

Several months later, Sicily is completely under Garibaldi's control. During his service with the Redshirts, Tancredi has lost an eye and become an intimate friend of Sicily's new leaders. Only his influence has been able to obtain the permits for to the Salinas to travel to their summer palace at Donnafugata. Upon arrival, Prince Fabrizio learns, much to his dismay, that Don Calogero Sedàra, the mayor, has manipulated the chaos spawned by the Redshirts and cheaply bought up vast tracts of valuable land. Although the Prince regards Don Calogero as a vulgar and money grubbing upstart, the mayor is now every bit as wealthy as the Salinas.

Later, Father Pirrone speaks to the Prince on an errand for Signorina Concetta. Imminently expecting a marriage proposal from her cousin Tancredi, Concetta is requesting her father's permission to accept him. Suddenly feeling much older, Prince Fabrizio delays giving his answer.

At the ball that evening, Don Calogero arrives in an evening suit which barely fits his massive girth. Meanwhile, Tancredi encounters Angelica Sedàra, Don Calogero's seventeen year old daughter, who has just returned to Sicily after four years at a finishing school in Florence. Attracted both by Angelica's beauty and her father's money, Tancredi commences a flirtation rife with sexual innuendo. Scandalized, Concetta sharply criticizes her cousin's behavior and turns her back to him.

The next morning, the Salinas pay a formal visit the village convent. When Tancredi asks to accompany them inside. his request is rejected with blistering coldness by Concetta. Enraged, he walks back to the village alone. That evening, Prince Fabrizio watches from the palace balcony as Tancredi, flanked by a footman carrying flowers and decked out in his "seduction color" of Prussian blue, calls at the Serdàra's door.

Part III

October 1860

Tancredi has followed the Redshirts into Naples. Angelica has taken to visiting the Salina palace daily to enquire for news about her new suitor. The Prince summarizes the content of Tancredi's letters to her, while carefully concealing his nephew's affair with a Neapolitan dancer. Eventually, a letter arrives in which Tancredi asks his uncle to negotiate a marriage with Angelica. Enraged that Tancredi will not be marrying Concetta, Princess Maria Stella indignantly declares that Tancredi has betrayed both his King and his family. Prince Fabrizio, however, argues that Tancredi, "goes through money like a sieve," and therefore needs the Serdàra fortune. He also states that Concetta's coldness is the reason for the relationship's disintigration. He expresses dismay, however, at having to humble himself before Don Calogero.

Later, while hunting rabbits in the countryside with Don Ciccio La Manna, the parish organist, the Prince reflects upon the recent plebiscite in Donnafugata. To his shock, the Prince learns that the election was rigged by Don Calogero, who officially announced the results as unanimously in favor of joining the Kingdom of Italy. Don Ciccio, the son of a royal gamekeeper, expresses outrage that his vote in favor of the Bourbons was altered to fit the whims of Garibaldi. He describes Don Calogero's background with contempt. The new mayor owes his fortune to usury and scandalously eloped with the daughter of an impoverished Salina tenant named Pepe Merda. Don Ciccio states that, when his new father-in-law objected, Don Calogero murdered him with nine bullets in the back.

After asking the reasons for the Prince's questions, Don Ciccio is horrified to learn of Tancredi's upcoming marriage to Angelica Serdàra. Don Ciccio, and the other Royalists of Donnafugata, had believed that Tancredi has been out to humiliate Don Calogero by seducing his daughter. He declares that such a marriage will be the end of the Salinas and Falconeris. The Prince turns purple with humiliation and outrage and reassures himself that the marriage is "in the best of traditions," namely the marriage between old money and new. As thetw o friends return in silence to Donnafugata, it is impossible to tell which of the two is Don Quixote and which is Sancho Panza.

That evening, Don Calogero is summoned to the Salina palace. On behalf of his nephew Tancredi, the Prince formally requests Angelica's hand in marriage. Overjoyed, Don Calogero announces the massive dowry that he plans to give to his daughter, leaving Prince Fabrizio deeply impressed by the gold mine which Tancredi has struck. Later, as the Prince climbs the stairs to inform his family, Concetta sits bent over her sewing and does not even turn.

Part IV

November 1860

As the meetings between them become more frequent, Prince Fabrizio and Don Calogero develop a complex and bumpy alliance with each other. Prince Fabrizio begins to make use of Don Calogero's financial acumen, and the profits of the Salina estates begin to skyrocket as a result. Among their tenants, however, the Salina family begins to develope a very harsh reputation. In addition, Don Calogero begins to see the value of Prince Fabrizio's better grooming and poised ettiquette. Therefore, the process commences which, within three generations, reduces wealthy peasants to defenseless gentry.

In a carefully stage managed ceremony, Angelica makes her first call at the Salina palace as the future wife of Tancredi. Her bearing is so regal that even Father Pirrone cannot help but take notice. Princess Maria Stella takes her future niece's arm and entertains Angelica with stories from Tancredi's childhood. Concetta conceals her dislike under a veil of good manners, while Prince Fabrizio eyes Angelica with an air of sensual envy.

Soon after, Tancredi returns from Naples decked out in the blue uniform of the Piedmontese cavalry. Concetta is heard to cry, "Darling," before she remembers the truth. Meanwhile, Tancredi boasts of his great joy at abandoning the Redshirts for the new Royal Italian Army.

Later, as Concetta gently rebuffs the advances of a Piedmontese Count, Tancredi and Angelica begin solitary strolls through the decaying rooms of the Salina palace. Increasingly torn between lust and the fear of going too far, their teasing and flirtations take on a nature which draws them closer to but always shy of an actual sex act.

Parts V-VI

As the novel progresses, Prince Fabrizio finds himself in an existential crisis which no one else can understand. The Prince's authority over his family and tenants was once his reason for living. With the nobility becoming increasingly impoverished and powerless, Prince Fabrizio feels bereft of purpose. Tancredi's marriage to Angelica serves as a symbol of the transfer of power from the world of inherited privilege to that of the nouveau riche. Although the text is littered with hints that Tancredi and Angelica's marriage is not a happy one, it proves productive for both of their ambitions.

Part VII

As the novel winds to a close, we see Prince Fabrizio in his death throes, contemplating not his own future but that of his family.

Part VIII

In an epilogue, the novel ends in 1910 as the Salina line approaches extinction. Princess Concetta Salina, a spinster in her seventies, converses with the widowed Princess Angelica Falconeri. Ultimately, she decides to discard the heirlooms which are reminders of her family's distinguished past, long since rendered irrelevant by history. In the finale, a Catholic prelate arrives from Palermo to remove the relics from the palace chapel, wherein the novel first began.