Ritorno al Gattopardo

Back to Il Gattopardo
In the essay, the author traces his first early approach towards the book and the movie, in order to analyse the effectiveness of the ideas and images that made Il Gattopardo a masterpiece. The essay then focuses on the «historical» side of Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel, related to the period of Italian Risorgimento. Adopting an historical point of view, the author proposes a new interpretation of the novel’s analysis and remarks. Besides the Sicilian and Southern soul of this oeuvre, the author underlines the national relevance of the historical themes, like the end of the Old Regime. A further point is an analysis of how Visconti perceived the Gattopardo in his movie. In the end a general hypothesis concerning the reasons of the immediate success of the Gattopardo during the italian 60s socioeconomic miracle is put forward.