A Sicilian Prince and his family squeeze into a carriage in their swaths of satin and silk to ride to a magnificent ball through the dark, tiny streets of Palermo near the climax of Lampedusa's famous Italian tale, The Leopard. It is the year 1862. Following the arrival of Garibaldi's troops on the island two years before, the people of Sicily had voted yes to the unification of Italy. The possibility of a ball excites the young Princesses. Prince Fabrizio, their world-weary father - the leopard of the title, called for a coat of arms that can still be found all throughout southern Europe - approaches the evening with trepidation. With the coming of Garibaldi, the Prince's languid, sensuous world of glittering palaces, perfumed gardens, and country homes has come to an end. Social systems that were once rigid have disintegrated. Tancredi, the Prince's adored nephew, has fallen in love with the gorgeous daughter of the newly prosperous local grocer.
Lampedusa, himself a twentieth-century Prince recounting the story of his nineteenth-century counterpart, observes through the eyes of Prince Fabrizio as his world rapidly collapses around him in what E.M Forster dubbed "a vast lonely book." Burt Lancaster played the Prince, Alain Delon played the nephew, and Claudia Cardinale played the grocer's lovely daughter, Angelica, in Visconti's lavish, luxurious adaptation of the novel. The ball is described as taking place in Palazzo Ponteleone in a ballroom of "faded gold, pale as the hair of certain nordic youngsters," with "gods reclining on gilded couches gazing down" from the ceiling. The author's voice unexpectedly breaks this not yet faded grandeur to warn us that those gods may have "considered themselves eternal, but a bomb made in Pittsburgh, Penn., in 1943 was to show the contrary."
It will be the same with practically all of the novel's settings. Lampedusa universe proves as stealthy and elusive as the huge cat of the title as I make my way about Palermo.
The fictional Donnafugata in the novel, Lampedusa's rural residence at Santa Margherita Belice, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1968. Lampedusa's family palace was destroyed by the allies in Palermo, where the gloomy, hunched old town hides from the light and turns its back on the royal blue sea. I walk towards the sea, hoping to catch a sight of Prince Fabrizio's Hotel Trinacria on Via Butera, where he will die twenty years after the ball. It is said to be being renovated in a 1996 guide, but I've learned that in slippery Sicily, your handbook must be up to date because all I see is a boarded-up exterior and a plaque commemorating its previous greatness.
I'm about to give up in despair when I recall that the receptionist at the Italia nel Mondo travel agency had handed me a piece of paper with the address of a Countess right before I left London. A Princess' phone number was faxed to me by another agency. The Palermo nobility, like their British counterparts, requires funds to maintain palaces that date back to the 12th century. As a result, they've decided to host dinner parties in their mansions. Perhaps this is where I'll discover the leopard's forgotten realm. After making two phone calls, I'm invited to a Saturday night dinner party at the Princess's palace with an American study group and a Monday night dinner with the Countess and a group of Germans.
Appartamenti Lampedusa in residence, in villetta a 20 metri dalla spiaggia di cala Croce isola di Lampedusa. Appartamenti interamente climatizzati vista mare.
On Saturdays, I ring the Pietratagliata Palace bell, which is located beside an enormous wooden door on a dark, cobblestone street. This is not the time to remain in a market that is closing up. I'm in a vast courtyard at the bottom of a marble stairway when a small door appears within the larger one. At the top, the Principessa Signoretta is waiting. She is a thin, gorgeous, and energetic brunette, not a faded glory. She walks me through baronial halls to the ballroom, where we dine on Sicilian specialties with the Americans beneath the world's largest 18th-century chandelier.
Appartamenti Lampedusa in residence e in villette tra le più belle località di Lampedusa, descrizione appartamenti , calette e anfratti di un'isola meravigliosamente naturale.
Two days later, the blonde Countess Alwine Federico, a trained singer originally from Salzburg, leads the German company up to the twelfth-century tower of the large and sumptuous Palazzo Conte Federico. She shows us the Pleyel piano on which Wagner once performed before we settle down to dinner and a singing recital by the Countess herself.
The fictional Prince Fabrizio would have been Wagner's contemporaries. So the Leopard's world is still hidden behind the towering, gloomy doors of Palermo. "But I don't want to be a leopard, simply watching it all slip away," the Princess had murmured two days before. I'd like to transform into a tiger and fight for a revitalised Palermo!"
She may not agree with him, but I believe Prince Fabrizio, a guy who never failed to see a beautiful lady even in the depths of despair, would have appreciated these bright, attractive 21st century aristocrats who are creating their own version of the leopard's world.