A unique case
It has been 60 years since al The Leopard the Strega prize was awarded, a novel by a newcomer that was preferred by the jury to The house of life by Mario Praz A violent life by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Beauty spring by Beppe Fenoglio, The Ghisolfa bridge by Giovanni Testori The poor Peter of Campanile. Other times indeed!
It is a futile question and all in all of little interest to know which was the greatest Italian best seller of the Republic; which Italian novel has sold the most in the last 75 years.
In the absence of official data and objective estimates, which take many aspects into account, such as free or paid distribution combined with newspapers, the weight of any school editions or promotions, we believe that it would not go very far from the truth in reducing this hypothetical parterre to a very small number of works, such as The Leopard, The Name of The rose, Go where your heart takes you, I kill, followed by a few other titles.
A quality best seller
The first edition of The Leopard exhibited at the exhibition for the 50th anniversary in Palermo in which the main Italian editions of the novel belonging to the Umberto Cantone Collection were exhibited
If we then wanted to abandon the ambit of numbers and discuss which of these was the book of greatest literary depth, in all likelihood the palm would go to The Leopard. And this could only please, for several reasons.
The first is that the extraordinary reception given to a work of high, if not very high, literary value reveals how at the end of the XNUMXs there was a mass of readers in Italy who knew how to choose books that were worthwhile: a mass of readers with good taste which was directed towards works of undoubted depth. AND The Leopard, from this point of view, it was not the only valuable novel awarded by readers: in those years the works of Pratolini, Cassola, Bassani, Pasolini, just to name a few, also garnered public approval. were sure protagonists of the literature of the second half of the twentieth century.
And this is certainly appreciable from all points of view. A bit like it happened in his time with I promise sposi: great popular best seller and at the same time a work of incomparable literary value. As well as The Leopard is of that level, mind you, but it can be easily included in the not very wide and never enough appreciated group of high quality books.
The "value" of the market
And this is the path that it would be desirable for readers to always take: choosing works that are popular, but of value.
The thing is obviously neither simple nor easy, given that to see it realized it would be necessary for quality works to be present on the market, which readers can then reward with their purchases. And this is not always possible, in fact it rarely is. And so, faced with an endless offer of works, which rarely have valid literary titles, buyers orient themselves as they see fit.
The leading role played by the most authoritative critics up until a few decades ago is missing, and this must be remembered: the third page of the newspapers and the column of the "big" critics in the weeklies, who guided the choices of readers, in some way educating them and directing them to books worthy of reading. Today all this no longer exists, and in the editorial choices of publishing houses only the criterion of the "marketability" of a work prevails. And to that they all bow. For this today we have the best sellers we have.
The Leopard
As he had done the year before with "Doctor Zhivago", it was Giangiacomo Feltrinelli who understood the value of the "Leopard" and published it with his Feltrinelli after Einaudi and Mondadori had rejected it
Having said that, let's take a look at the editorial history of this great novel. The book came out in 1958, after the main publishing houses of the time, Mondadori and Einaudi in the lead, had rejected it, not believing too much in the work of the Sicilian nobleman Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.
He appears too different and far from the image one had of the writer at the time: an intellectual engaged in politics and social life, often at the center of debates and controversies. Not a little-known aristocrat of "profession", as he liked to call himself, who only by chance and almost occasionally had landed in writing. And then a historical novel! Who would be interested in reading it!
And so it was published by a publisher who had just appeared on the scene, but who had already achieved a masterstroke the year before. He had in fact published in world premiere Dr. Zhivago, which would become one of the best sellers worldwide.
In 1958 therefore, the year after the death of its author, it comes out The Leopard, thanks to the active intervention of Giorgio Bassani, who advocated its publication by Feltrinelli, and completed and adapted the text. And it immediately happened, absolutely one of the greatest of the post-war period.
A few years later, the splendid film adaptation made by Luchino Visconti, with the unforgettable interpretations of Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale and Paolo Stoppa, revived its glories. In a short time 100.000 copies were burned, after three years 400.000 copies, an unprecedented figure for the times, and this is only the beginning. In the following years the book continues to rise rapidly, so much so that it first exceeds one million copies, then two million in 1987, two and a half million in the early XNUMXs, and today, having abundantly crossed the threshold of three million copies, The Leopard it is on its way to far more prestigious goals.
A big success
There are also numerous translations abroad, already over thirty, which according to some would make it one of the best-known Italian books worldwide. Therefore an amazing and very rare success in the editorial affairs of our republic, which goes hand in hand with the disappointment of those who rejected it in his time: Elio Vittorini first, both at Mondadori and at Einaudi, who did not understand the potential of the work of a somewhat blasé Sicilian nobleman, who lived apart and without fanfare. And behind him the regret of those who saw a real gold mine slip away.
This is also further proof of how unpredictable, unexpected and random the success of a book is, almost impossible to predict in advance, unless it is the work of an already established writer, known and appreciated by readers.
The life
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was born in Palermo in 1896, the only child, after the death of his sister, of a famous family, which according to scholars on the subject dates back even to the times of Byzantium and perhaps even earlier.
He spends his childhood between the family's large Palermo house and the country house of his mother, Beatrice Mastrogiovanni Tasca di Cutò, a woman of great culture and temperament, with whom her son will have a particularly intense relationship, also due to the coldness and detachment of the father, Giulio Maria Tomasi, against him.
After completing his high school studies in Rome, the young man enrolled in the faculty of law, without however being able to graduate. He was soon called up to arms, was taken prisoner by the Austrians during the defeat of Caporetto, and was interned in a camp in Hungary, from where he managed to escape and reach Italy on foot.
After the war he remained for a few years in the army as an officer, but in 1925 he took his leave and spent long periods in Sicily, always in the company of his mother, who nurtured an almost possessive affection towards her son. Tomasi di Lampedusa alternates his stay in his native region with frequent and long trips to Europe, also to complete his cultural education. He spends most of his time in solitude, immersed in reading and meditation, a situation congenial to his personality. In the meantime he begins to collaborate in a Genoese literary magazine.
The marriage
In 1932 he married in Latvia a German psychoanalysis scholar, also of noble origins, daughter of a German baron and an opera singer from Modena, Alice Barbi, who in her second marriage had married Pietro Tomasi della Torretta, Giuseppe's uncle, a diplomat and later a nationally prominent politician, as foreign minister and president of the Senate.
With his wife, also at her second wedding, and his mother he goes to live in Palermo in their large home, splendid albeit in need of careful restoration. However, the incompatibility of the two women's characters makes coexistence impossible, and the wife returns to Latvia shortly after.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, the writer was called up, but managed to obtain exemption as he was in charge of the family farm, with which he supported himself not always comfortably. When his mother died in 1946 he returned to live with his wife.
In the early XNUMXs he began to associate with some intellectuals, including the young Gioacchino Lanza Mazzarino, later Tomasi, a brilliant young man whom he would later adopt as a son, having none of his own.
After a trip to San Pellegrino terme in 1954 for a literary congress, where he got to know Giorgio Montale, Maria Bellonci and Giorgio Bassani, he set about writing his masterpiece, which he completed in two years, in 1956. He sent it to various houses publishers, but the novel was rejected by all, causing a deep bitterness in the author. In particular, Elio Vittorini's double refusal to publish it at Mondadori and Einaudi weighs heavily on him, something that the great intellectual seems to have later regretted. And I would like to see! One might add ironically.
In 1957 he was diagnosed with lung cancer, which led him to his grave in July of the same year at the age of 61, in Rome.
A troubled publication
Shortly after the typescript of the The Leopard it reaches the hands of Elena Croce, the philosopher's daughter, and she sends it to Giorgio Bassani, editor of the Feltrinelli, who publishes it in 1958 with the success we have just seen. Even the most authoritative critics underline its great value, highlighting the stylistic merits of the work, rather than the historical-political novelties, already found in other previous novels, such as The Viceroys by Federico DeRoberto. However, it is striking that that cold and ruthless analysis of the political situation in Sicily, and by extension of the entire peninsula, sometimes seen as incurable, periodically turns out to be of urgent relevance even today.
The intellectual world is strongly divided over the book. On the one hand there is the awarding of the Strega prize, even if it is contested, given that it was also at stake A violent life of Pasolini, but on the other hand, especially on the left, doubts are nourished about the novel and its political position, perhaps too hastily considered right-wing. The release of the film by a director like Visconti, notoriously close to the communist party, will partially heal this gap.
The plot
The Leopard is the story of the slow decline of a very noble Sicilian family in the period which marks the end of the Bourbon reign. The novel begins with the description of the weeks of the Garibaldi landing in Sicily, with the island's nobility sensing its imminent end and preparing to adapt to the new reality, while the busy bourgeoisie is ready to accept its legacy.
However, the protagonist of the novel does not do so, Don Fabrizio di Salina, a great noble heir to one of the most illustrious families on the island. He waits with imperturbable calm for the passing to take place, without reacting or opposing it, completely disillusioned with life. His nephew Tancredi instead does everything to get on the bandwagon, in order to perpetuate the hegemony of his social class. He volunteers in the red shirts, then enters the army of the newly formed Kingdom of Italy, and marries Angelica Sedara, daughter of a beggar who has become very rich with his trades, who brings him a fabulous wealth as a dowry, thus filling the difference of birth with money.
Don Fabrizio, on the other hand, also declined the nomination as senator which a government envoy, Chevalley di Monterzuolo, offered him, disenchanted with everything and awaiting only death, which occurred in 1883. His unmarried daughters, who remained to guard the memory of the father and the family in an almost religious way, waiting for death to put an end to everything.
