Italian history of 1860s is generally told in the lens of the victors: the defeaters of Austrian empire and other international rule over the dispersed Italian states, and the unifiers of Italy into one nation. Indeed, extensive discussion of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the courageous Italian patriot who led the Italian unification and liberated Italy from traditional aristocratic rule, is often contrasted to the stubborn, power-hungry royalties. However Giuseppe Di Lampedusa’s The Leopard provokes an interesting view of the Risorgimento and the histories of Revolutions in Europe during the mid 19th century. Instead of extoling the Giuseppe Mazzinis, comte de Saint-Simons, and the Giuseppe Garibaldis, Lampedusa romantically portrays the lives of an Italian aristocratic family—and in doing so enlightens the readers that not all aristocrats were die-hard conservative monarchists—rather some accepted, sympathized or even helped pioneer the Risorgimento. By observing Lampedusa’s treatment of natural symbolisms, the Prince Don Fabrizio, and Tancredi, it becomes evident that his story is not that of a regular European History textbook, but one that sympathizes with the decline of the house of Salina, or aristocrats in general, in mid 19th century Europe.
To briefly recount Lampedusa’s chronicle of the Risorgimento and its aftermath, Lampedusa stages the story in 1860—parallel to the historical timeline of Garibaldi’s movement—and ends the story in 1910, decades after the Prince’s death. Although Lampedusa initially portrays the prince as a prideful man who dislikes change and appears stubborn in dealing with revolutionaries, he develops the Prince into not a haughty aristocrat but a relatable liberal aristocrat. The Prince is initially critical of revolts and thus his nephew, Tancredi, who fights on the side of the liberals and probes the Prince with his sarcastic remarks on the imminent change within Italian socio political culture. As Tancredi tells the Prince, “if we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change” (28), the repetition of the theme of change for the sake of continuity stresses the approaching revolution that will unite Italy and change its political hierarchy. The story initially mirrors the historical background in its conflicts between the traditional lineage of aristocrats and rising bourgeoisie and other lower, modern classes. As Tancredi explains to the Prince when describing the peach tree that it is better to appreciate “fruits of your own labors…not in shameless naked flesh,” The Prince and his nephew struggle between the two dominant ideologies among aristocrats at that time—to break from tradition and lose all family wealth and doing meritocratic work or to stick with what they know and reaping the profits from previous generations without working.
However, as the Prince’s family is forced to retreat to their home in Donnafugata, the Prince begins to become more yielding towards the liberal forces despite his continued sadness towards his disappearing pride in his family heritage. The Prince’s befriending of one of the key players of the Risorgimento, Don Calogero, indicates either (or both) his surrendering to or recognition of liberal unification of Italy. The dramatic moment in which the Prince humiliatingly votes “yes” to the question of unifying Italy perhaps indicates the Prince’s change in his character to be more benign towards liberals. Furthermore, his acceptance of Tancredi’s proposal to Angelica, a daughter of liberal leader from the peasantry (Don Calogero), highlights the conjoining and almost cooperation between the aristocrat and the landed peasantry. A bi-directional relationship, the Prince molds into the Calogero life as Calogero transforms into the “defenseless gentry”—from a peasant, through the “process of continual refining” by his relationship with the Prince (138). In the end, the Prince dies of old age, the book ending in 1910 decades after his death, with Tancredi dead but once married to Angelica and the three daughters of the Prince old and alone, unable to leave a Salinas legacy.
Lampedusa’s endearing treatment of the Prince reflected in his tone and word-choice reflects his pity, if not reminiscent yearning for the aristocratic “old ways.” Lampedusa introduces the Prince with series of descriptive phrases:
The Prince, has risen to his feet; the sudden movement of his huge frame made the floor tremble, and a glint of pride flashed in his light blue eyes at this fleeting confirmation of his lordship over both human beings and their works (7).
Words such as “tremble,” “huge,” “risen,” and “lordship,” frequently used in describing powerful religious figures, here describe the Prince—conveying Lampedusa’s glorification of the Prince’s poise and power. Moreover, the detailed descriptions of the Prince’s features such as the “light blue eyes” and in subsequent phrases depict the Prince not as a cold hearted, emotionless man, but simply as another human being capable of emotions. Such attribution of emotions demonstrated by Lampedusa’s description of the Prince’s psychological conflict between the history and present imply Lampedusa’s sympathetic treatment of the aristocrat as merely a citizen who, like people in other classes, is confused by the hectic, scattered events of the Risorgimento. This humanly attribution increases as the novel progresses, for example, Lampedusa depicts the humbleness of the prince as he warily considers his guests at the ball in Donnafugata by not wearing his evening dress and tending to his guests who were peasants and recent gentries (78-82). Moreover Lampedusa frequently discusses the Prince’s affection for astronomy and sciences, creating an intellectual-like image of the Prince and not a stubborn tyrant-like Prince. Although Lampedusa does include snippets of the Prince’s corruption such as his sexual pursuits, Lampedusa presents a new perspective in Risorgimento and Revolution history by creating an aristocratic character that follows the times and expresses little resistance towards Italy’s unification. His description of the prince as “following an invisible carriage” of the decline of his prestige and entering the modern era without battle creates a pitiful image of the aristocrat, almost mirroring Edmund Burke’s description of Marie Antoinette composedly and royally walking towards her execution (107).
If Lampedusa’s Prince reflects the flexibility of an aristocrat in somewhat successfully assimilating into the new liberal Italy (despite his depression at his alienation from his past identity) his Tancredi provides a new perspective on how a traditional aristocrat is capable of aiding the liberal movement as a forerunner of liberal beliefs. As aforementioned, Tancredi abides by his conviction in change for the better. Consistently nudging his uncle to support the unification efforts to retain power, Tancredi immerses in activism and makes a name for himself in the liberalist armies. His challenging the Prince with enigmatic questions “for the King, yes, of course. But which King?” conveys Tancredi’s rebelliousness and political engagement, qualities usually attributed to Risorgimento leaders such as Garibaldi (28). However, Lampedusa makes sure to distinguish Tancredi from peasants and other recent gentries and sets him as an aristocrat pioneering the movement. The description of Tancredi’s “elegant spruceness” and his connections to both the aristocrats and the townspeople of Donnafugata tells the Risorgimento history not just in the perspective of the Piedmontese or Young Italy, but in the eyes of a liberal nobility. Tancredi, as Lampedusa states, is not like the royalists of papal Rome or Venetia, but is an “unconventional youth….an aristocratic liberal…wounded hero of the battle of Palermo” (60).
Lampedusa’s characterization of both the Prince and Tancredi suggests that class, unlike how the majority of historical texts indicate, is not an identity that definitely shapes a person’s view. Tancredi more patently, but the Prince, too, consequently supports the liberal cause through his voting and lack of resistance. Lampedusa further makes it so that the Prince did not abide by the liberalist movement with intentions of social climbing when the Prince declines a general’s offer to be the Senate of new Italy. He states:
I cannot accept. I am a member of the old ruling class, inevitably comprised with the Bourbon regime and tied to it by chains of decency if not of affection. I belong to an unfortunate generation, swung between the old world and new, and I find myself ill at ease in both (180).
His acknowledgement of his ties to the historically oppressive or monarchical regime and his understanding of the current political situation demonstrate that he did not cooperate with the transition of power to garner wealth and maintain power—contrary to many historian’s attribution of political motivations to aristocrats who helped the Risorgimento movement.
Lampedusa’s The Leopard resembles Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France in that both Lampedusa and Burke seems to go against popular history’s antagonistic representation of the aristocracy during the 19th century revolutions with their romantic reflection on declining monarchs and aristocrats. Such attitudes towards the Prince (in the case of Lampedusa) and Marie Antoinette (in the case of Edmund Burke) convey the two author’s presumable preference for continuity and gradual change versus radical reform that a revolution entails. For instance, natural symbolisms of the sun and the garden in The Leopard showcase Lampedusa’s romanticist view towards the fading nobility and his gloom in tradition’s ruin. Lampedusa frequently discusses the sun and the rain and attributes a symbolic meaning of the sun as an absolute ruler, possibly connecting to the “Sun King” Louis XIV (38, 91). He uses the simile of the “sun back on its throne like an absolute monarch…under constitutional restraint” and the compares rains to the “subject’s barricades” (91). This pose an interesting contrast in which the sun—light—is associated with the aristocrats while the rain—cold and damp—is associated with the subjects. Moreover, the pitiful tone in describing the increasingly odorous royal garden despite its many expensive flowers “burned by apocalyptic Julys” graciously hint at the decaying power of the aristocracy. By describing the aristocrats with ironies of the sun (symbol of absolute power) repressed by the rain and flowers (symbol of beauty) degenerating, Lampedusa perhaps hints at his dislike of the unnatural events disrupting tradition during the Risorgimento.
Lampedusa tells a story of the Risorgimento not in the eyes of the haughty, anti-liberal leopards or the extremely liberal revolutionary leaders. In fact, Garibaldi is merely in the background of the book and is only briefly mentioned but never is developed into an actual character in Lampedusa’s Risorgimento novel. Throughout the book the Prince professes his desire to live as Bendicò does, living each moment to the fullest and not full of ephemeral, hollow moments. But then, which is truly better to live as: a dog that does not have much to worry about or a leopard—nobility who has power and prestige? It does not matter, as Bendicò, a Great Dane that was treated as a leopard—a royal emblem of the Salina family—dies in the end, thrown into the trash and soon to be forgotten. For Lampedusa, in the end, everyone turns into a “heap of livid dust” regardless of what class, gender, and ethnicity (279).