Tomasi di Lampedusa, Giuseppe

▪ Italian author

born Dec. 23, 1896, Palermo, Sicily, Italy

died July 23, 1957, Rome

      Italian author, duke of Palma, and prince of Lampedusa, internationally renowned for his only completed novel, Il gattopardo (1958; The Leopard).

      Born into the Sicilian aristocracy, Lampedusa served as an artillery officer during World War I. After his capture and imprisonment in Hungary, he escaped and returned to Italy on foot. After a nervous breakdown precluded the diplomatic career to which he had aspired, he devoted himself to an intensely private life of intellectual activity, reading in several languages, discussing literature with a small group of friends, and writing for his own enjoyment.

      In 1955 Lampedusa began writing the novel that, although rejected by publishers during his lifetime, brought him world acclaim with its posthumous publication. The novel is a psychological study of Don Fabrizio, prince of Salina (called the Leopard, after his family crest), who witnesses with detachment the transfer of power in Sicily from the old Bourbon aristocracy to the new Kingdom of Italy and the grasping, unscrupulous liberal bourgeoisie during the 1860s. Don Fabrizio's nephew, by contrast, participates opportunistically in the revolution and marries into the new class.

      While adhering to the Don's conservative viewpoint, the novel unfolds in a series of compelling dramatic scenes, matched by richness of literary style. The character of Don Fabrizio is one of the most striking in 20th-century Italian literature, and the book, despite the ideological controversies it stimulated, is widely recognized as a masterpiece.

      Lampedusa's posthumously published Racconti (1961; “Stories”) includes the first chapter of an unfinished novel as well as a brief memoir. It was translated into English in part as Two Stories and a Memory (1962). The Siren, and Selected Writings (1995) corrects and expands material published in Two Stories and a Memory and also includes several essays by Lampedusa on literature.

Additional Reading

David Gilmour, The Last Leopard: A Life of Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1988, reissued 1991).

* * *