Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Leopard, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cultural Survival and Decline
The Inevitability of Change
Class Conflict and Revolution
Love vs. Sensuality
Summary
Analysis
In November 1862, the Salinas are headed to a ball. The Prince, Princess, Concetta, and Carolina cram into a carriage. Now that outbreaks of revolutionary violence have faded, Palermo society can’t get enough of parties, as if to congratulate one another “on still existing.” This ball, the Ponteleones’, is one of the biggest of the season, and Angelica will be presented there for the first time. Normally, the Salinas wouldn’t show up as early as 10:30 P.M., but the Sedàras don’t understand society’s rules and will take the invitation literally.
A year after Angelica and Tancredi’s engagement, and some 18 months after the revolution, life in Palermo is getting more or less back to normal. The nobility, at least, are still able to persuade themselves that life remains as it has always been. The ball is an opportunity for noble families to reassert their class standing, even if nobody but themselves cares about it. This is new territory for the Sedàras, however, and they don’t understand the unwritten social rules.
Themes
The Prince looks forward to the impression Angelica will make, but he also dreads seeing Don Calogero’s outfit—he knows Tancredi has taken his future father-in-law to a good tailor. Suddenly, the carriage stops to make way for a priest walking past with the Blessed Sacrament, on his way to a person’s deathbed. The Prince gets out of the carriage and kneels on the street until the priest passes out of sight. Then the carriage continues its journey, and a short time later, the Salinas arrive at the ball.
The Prince continues to feel insecure about Don Calogero’s rise in society. Yet his thoughts are disrupted by the passing of a priest (the Eucharist is being carried to a dying person). The contrast between worldly concerns and death is a common pattern in the Prince’s life, as he is haunted by the inevitability of his own death—and, by implication, that of the nobility. His insecurities about the rising class, in other words, are pointless, because his death is already guaranteed.
Themes
The family approaches the entrance of the beautiful Ponteleone palace and are greeted by Don Diego, Prince of Ponteleone, and Donna Margherita. They find Tancredi just inside, eagerly watching for Angelica’s arrival. The hosts mention that Colonel Pallavicino is also expected. The Colonel shot General Garibaldi in the foot at Aspromonte, and the Prince perceives that Ponteleone approves of the Colonel’s actions because they maintained the compromise between old and new. Colonel Pallavicino circulates through the party, charming ladies with emotional tales of the battle.
The Battle of Aspromonte took place in the late summer of 1862, just a few months before the ball. The Italian army defeated Garibaldi’s volunteers, who at the time were advancing toward Rome with the aim of annexing it into the Kingdom of Italy. Though Rome was now officially Italy’s capital, the Pope remained in control of the city. Garibaldi was determined to secure Rome for the Kingdom, but King Victor Emmanuel intervened, sending the army to stop him. However, Garibaldi was still a national hero, and nobody really wanted to fight him. After a brief battle, Garibaldi was mildly injured and taken prisoner, putting an end to the matter.
Themes
Don Calogero and Angelica arrive late, Don Calogero looking respectable if inelegant. (The military medal he’s mistakenly worn soon disappears into Tancredi’s pocket.) Angelica is modest and restrained, having been coached by Tancredi in advance that spontaneity doesn’t suit a future princess. She is an immediate hit, making young men regret that they hadn’t discovered her for themselves—but it’s common knowledge that she was the Prince of Salina’s to bestow. Angela also fits in smoothly with the other ladies and soon moves through the party at ease. As she tours the palace, she praises the furniture and art with a careful reserve, showing that she’s tasteful but not provincial.
Don Calogero is still figuring out how to move among his new noble peers—wearing a military medal is considered to be bad form. Angelica is fitting in much more naturally, not only following Tancredi’s directions about proper princess behavior but making a name for herself as an art critic. Angelica’s resourcefulness, besides being another sign of her ambition, suggests that class position is more changeable in Sicily than has been thought in the past.
Themes
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The Prince wanders through the house, his mood worsening. The décor seems outdated, and when he sees a few old mistresses among the women, he feels regret at spending his best years pursuing them. The Prince finds the young women unimpressive too, attributing this to poor nutrition and too much intermarriage; they mostly sit around giggling. Annoyed by their high-pitched chatter, the Prince soon withdraws to the room occupied by the older men. He has never had many friends among them, as he's considered eccentric for his interest in astronomy and has a rather forbidding demeanor.
The Prince, for his part, feels out of place in what once would have been his natural environment. Unlike Don Calogero, who is beginning to find his footing in his world, and Angelica, who is beginning to thrive in it, the Prince feels less and less a part of it. The suggests that the change he once resisted is becoming impossible to overlook.
Themes
Regretting that he came at all, the Prince finally wanders into the ballroom. The muted colors remind him achingly of Donnafugata, and the deities painted on the ceiling look like they will reside there forever (though a bomb will disprove this in 1943). Don Calogero joins the Prince and admires the pricy gold leaf. The Prince feels a jolt of dislike, knowing that Sedàra is thinking of the room’s value instead of its charm—it’s because of men like him, the Prince thinks, that palaces like these have an air of foreboding about them. But then, he shifts his attention to the lovely sight of Tancredi and Angelica gliding by, gazing into each other’s eyes. They are both motivated by self-interest, yet the beauty and tenderness of the moment obscures this.
Every once in a while, Lampedusa inserts jarring details from the future that underline the fact that the world, as it exists in the present, is dying. Here, the narration alludes to a World War II bomb that later destroys the seemingly permanent Ponteleone palace (this is likely a reference to Lampedusa’s own family estate, which was destroyed during the war). To the Prince, though, the source of decline is the lack of appreciation shown by new-moneyed men like Don Calogero—they don’t understand noble tradition, only monetary worth. Tancredi and Angelica, meanwhile, are still able to maintain the appearance of real love, even though wealth is their real motivation.
Themes
Sensing the death awaiting them all, the Prince feels compassion for everyone present—they are savoring what enjoyments they can before being snuffed out forever. Even if he despises them, he also has to admit that the nobility are the only kinds of people among whom he can be truly at ease. He feels himself to be superior to them in intelligence and breeding, yet he senses that they share a common cause. With Don Calogero distracted, the Prince quietly slips away.
The idea of death haunts the Prince—not just his own, but the sense that a whole world is passing away. This world of all-night balls and noble manners, as well as weaknesses and intrigues, is passing away. This is happening in spite of the Prince’s conviction that none of this could ever change.
Themes
It is two o’clock in the morning, and the Prince is growing tired. He finally finds comfortable solitude in the library, gazing at a painting, Greuze’s Death of the Just Man. The elderly man in the picture is dying in a clean bed surrounded by weeping grandchildren. The Prince wonders if his own death will be similar; the thought is strangely calming to him. He is more disturbed by others’ death than his own, knowing that his own will mean the “death […] of the whole world.”
It’s uncertain which painting Lampedusa is alluding to here; it seems to be a reference to Women and Children Mourning a Dead Man (1778) by Greuze. In any case, the Prince does not resist the truth that he will someday leave behind everything he has loved. In fact, just as he’s accepted the decline of the world he knows, he also finds peace in accepting his own death—an escape from constant change.
Themes
Just then, Tancredi and Angelica stroll in, needing a break from the dance. They gaze indifferently at the painting—death is abstract to them, not real. Angelica has a request for the Prince: she’s heard of his reputation as a dancer and wants him to dance the next mazurka with her. The Prince feels suddenly youthful but requests a calmer waltz instead.
Tancredi and Angelica’s youth contrasts with the Prince’s dark musings and with the sorrowful theme of the painting. In fact, Angelica’s invitation temporarily removes the Prince from his morbid train of thought, letting him regain a bit of his youthful glory.
Themes
The Prince and Angelica make a beautiful couple; his niece-to-be chatters warmly as they dance. The Prince feels a twinge of sadness when Concetta crosses his mind, but it passes quickly. He soon feels 20 again. The Prince remembers dancing with Maria Stella in this same ballroom, before he grew disillusioned and bored with life. As the waltz ends, he notices that the rest of the couples have withdrawn from the dance floor and are looking on in admiration. Angelica then invites the Prince to eat supper with her and Tancredi, but he declines, knowing that his presence would be a bore to the young people.
Deep down, the Prince is aware that he had a role in Concetta’s heartbreak, but he seems to push this out of his conscience. The dance distracts him from his musings on death and indeed from the disappointments of his own life. For a few moments, he regains his prowess as the admired leopard, standing out from everyone else.
Themes
Soon after, the Prince heads into the supper room, where mountains of cakes and delicacies are piled beneath an elaborate chandelier. He chooses some cakes from the dessert table and wanders in search of a seat. He ends up sitting next to Colonel Pallavicino and, from his conversation, soon finds that the man is very intelligent. The Colonel talks about the difficulty of firing on Garibaldi when faced with a large mob of agitated men. If he hadn’t done so, he says, then ultimately the newfound Italian Kingdom would have collapsed. The Colonel claims that it also freed Garibaldi from flatterers—lesser men than those who’d followed him in his invasion of Sicily. Afterward, Garibaldi thanked the Colonel, who kissed his hand with respect. The Colonel says that Garibaldi is really just an adventurous little boy.
Having felt ambivalent about Garibaldi ever since the revolution began, the Prince now has a chance to hear about Garibaldi’s defeat. Pallavicino is responsible for putting an end to Garibaldi’s ambitions, though this doesn’t impact many Italians’ esteem for Garibaldi. Pallavicino regards Garibaldi as a respectable general but also as an idealistic adventurer who took things too far. The shooting was an attempt to preserve what Garibaldi had already won—in a way, this echoes Tancredi’s earlier claim that in order for things to stay the same, other things must change.
Themes
As the men continue drinking together, Colonel Pallavicino complains of conditions on the Italian mainland. He says there has never been as much disunity as there is now, as the cities fret and maneuver—Turin doesn’t want to give up its position as capital to Rome, for instance. The Colonel predicts that someday, the red shirts will return. They’re like Italy’s fixed stars—but even these, as the Prince knows, only appear to be permanent. The Prince feels chilled by these words.
The revolution has not yet brought stability to Italy, as rival cities jockey for prominence; Pallavicino thinks that disgruntled rebels will someday shake things up again. Such rebels are a fixture in Italy, representing something enduring about the national character. But, he adds, nothing really stays the same—a statement that confirms the Prince’s worst fear about the world.
Themes
The ball continues until six in the morning. Ladies’ dresses are disheveled, men are pale from vomiting, and dirty dishes litter the tables—but nobody wants to be the first to leave. Instead of taking the carriage home with his family, the Prince decides to walk home to enjoy the fresh air. He also wants to look at the one or two remaining stars in the sky. Their distance and seeming unchangeable nature comforts him as always. He watches a wagon filled with recently slaughtered bulls pass by, blood dripping onto the street. The Prince sighs, looks up at Venus again, and wonders when he will be allowed to join the stars, far away from death, in eternal certainty.
The reluctant leave-taking from the ball symbolizes a way of life in decline, which people continue to stubbornly cling to. The Prince looks to the stars, as he has always done to find reassurance that some things never change. The dead bulls’ gruesome reminder of death makes the Prince long to escape from a world where change is accompanied by suffering and doubt. With the familiar world fading away, the Prince doesn’t feel he has much left to live for.
Themes
