The Leopard 1963

In May 1860, a civil war broke out in Italy between the Republicans—supporters of Garibaldi—and the loyalists of the ruling Bourbon dynasty. Prince Fabrizio di Salina, a Sicilian feudal lord and a cultured, wise aristocrat and intellectual, views the unfolding changes with both understanding and pessimism. Therefore, when his young nephew Tancredi first joins the ranks of Garibaldi’s rebels and then becomes an officer in the service of the King of Savoy, Don Fabrizio does not condemn him. Prince Salina himself does not wish to actively participate in the political struggle. He is fully aware of the inevitability of the great changes taking place and senses that the time of his “leopards” and “lions” is passing. “I belong to a dying class; I am free from illusions and incapable of self-deception,” he says. “We are leopards, lions. Those who will take our place will be jackals, hyenas.”