The Leopard

Content Warning: The source material and this section of the guide include references to sexual content. 

Prince Fabrizio lives in a dying world. As a member of the Sicilian nobility, he lives at a time when Sicily is being subsumed into the broader project of Italian unification. Everything, it seems, that he once knew or took to be stable is now undergoing radical change. Surrounded by evidence of decay and decline, the Prince stands out. In a very literal sense, he is bigger than everyone around him. His German ancestry, the novel suggests, distinguishes Fabrizio even among the other members of the Sicilian nobility. He is tall, powerful, and fair-skinned, standing taller than the people who live on his lands and pay money into his estates. Despite the changing world, Fabrizio embodies a noble’s entitlement. He wants the social order that he has always known to continue and, other than Kings, there are few people who he will allow to question him. His sense of entitlement is backed by centuries of aristocracy and vast wealth, but it is also evident within his family. Fabrizio loves his family, but he does not allow them to interfere with his desires. At the dinner table, he will seethe and rage because his eldest son arrives late.