Sicilian Twilight, The last Leopards
€ 82,50
Sicilian Twilight
The last Leopards
This beautiful and fascinating book is about the eccentric, high living, cultivated and mostly idle Sicilian nobility that was immortalized by Giuseppe di Lampedusa in his best selling book "The Leopard."
Il Gattopardo," also known as The Leopard, is a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, published posthumously in 1958. It is a sweeping historical novel set in Sicily during the 1860s, depicting the decline of the Sicilian aristocracy amidst the Risorgimento, Italy's unification. The story centers on Prince Fabrizio of Salina, known as "The Leopard," and his family as they grapple with the social and political upheaval of the time.
The "Sicilian twilight" aspect refers to the fading light of the old aristocratic world, as depicted in the novel, a world of lavish lifestyles, traditions, and power, giving way to a new, more modern Italy.
Old photographs, period documents, especially photographed grand palaces, landscapes, the accoutrements of daily life -- jewels, dresses, tableware, succulent food -- all contribute towards a vivid visualization of the world Lampedusa came from and wrote about.
Until the end of the 18th century, the Sicilian nobility conserved the ownership or at least the sovereignty over their entire island paradise.
They spent their large incomes on making a bella figure at the Bourbon court in Palermo, in receiving their peers in the most lavish style possible in gambling, womanizing, attending the opera, promenading in elegant carriages, and maintaining not only grand palaces in town, but equally extravagant and formal villas in the countryside.
Theirs was also a world of elaborate religious processions, marriages and funerals, glittering parties and balls until well into the 20th century, when the ratio of servants to population was the same as in Louis XIV's France.
But finally war, revolution and idleness brought the Leopards to extinction.
Everybody who loves Italy, Sicily, Lampedusa and decadence will be enchanted by this wonderful book.
EN
Hardcover
Gerard Gefen