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Tancredi Falconeri
Father Pirrone is a Jesuit priest, the Salina family chaplain, and the Prince’s friend. He disapproves of the new liberal politics that are becoming popular in Sicily—especially because he believes that the Italian State will seize the Catholic Church’s properties, thus disrupting the Church’s traditional role as benefactor to Sicily’s poor. Father Pirrone is portrayed as unfailingly faithful to the Salinas, as well as a sincere and devout Catholic. He is often concerned about the Prince’s spiritual welfare but still overlooks some of the Prince’s sexual misbehavior, especially when distracted by their shared hobby of astronomy. Father Pirrone also disapproves of Tancredi’s marriage, aware of Tancredi’s history of sexual indiscretions—but he doesn’t interfere in the arrangement. Father Pirrone comes from a humble peasant village, and his outsider perspective gives him unique insight into the character of the noble class. He believes that no matter what happens politically, the nobility will always renew itself in different forms, because nobility has more to do with attitude than blood. Father Pirrone also negotiates a peaceful outcome within his family after his niece is impregnated by a cousin. This event leads him to observe that both peasant and nobility are susceptible to the same kinds of misdeeds—they just manifest differently.
Father Pirrone Quotes in The Leopard
The The Leopard quotes below are all either spoken by Father Pirrone or refer to Father Pirrone. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5. Father Pirrone Pays a Visit Quotes
“It’s a class difficult to suppress because it’s in continual renewal and because if needs be it can die well, that is it can throw out a seed at the moment of death. […] I say as before, because it’s differences of attitude, not estates and feudal rights, which make a noble […] And I can tell you too, Don Pietrino, that if, as has often happened before, this class were to vanish, an equivalent one would be formed straightaway with the same qualities and the same defects; it might not be based on blood any more, but possibly on . . . on, say, the length of time lived in a place, or on greater knowledge of some text
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Two days later Father Pirrone left to return to Palermo. As he was jolted along he went over impressions that were not entirely pleasant; that brutish love affair come to fruition in St. Martin’s summer, that wretched half almond grove reacquired by means of calculated courtship, seemed to him the rustic poverty-stricken equivalent of other events recently witnessed. Nobles were reserved and incomprehensible, peasants explicit and clear; but the Devil twisted them both around his little finger all the same.
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Chapter 8. Relics Quotes
To her the removal of those objects was a matter of indifference; what did touch her, the day’s real thorn, was the appalling figure the Salina family would now cut with the ecclesiastical authorities, and soon with the entire city. […] And the Church’s esteem meant much to her. The prestige of her name had slowly disappeared; the family fortune, divided and subdivided, was at best equivalent to that of any number of other lesser families and very much smaller than that of some rich industrialists. But in the Church, in their relations with it, the Salinas had maintained their pre-eminence. What a reception His Eminence had given the three sisters when they went to make their Christmas visit! Would that happen now?
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Father Pirrone Character Timeline in The Leopard
The timeline below shows where the character Father Pirrone appears in The Leopard. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1. Introduction to the Prince
...these violent times, but the Prince irritably rebuffs her. As the carriage departs, his priest Father Pirrone accompanying him, the Prince hears his wife having a hysterical fit upstairs.
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As the carriage approaches Palermo, Father Pirrone points out the rebel campfires on a nearby mountain. As they enter the city, dozens...
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Two hours later, the Prince and the priest head home. Father Pirrone has heard a rumor of an impending Piedmontese invasion of Italy and is worried. The...
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...Prince decides to distract himself with astronomy. He climbs to the estate’s observatory and finds Father Pirrone , who assumes that the Prince has come for confession. When the Prince points out...
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...and reassured by the morning’s political conclusions, looks down at the Sicilian countryside. He tells Father Pirrone that it would take a lot of Victor Emmanuels to change the magic of Sicily,...
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Chapter 2. Donnafugata
...reassured. They were even invited back for dinner, and the Piedmontese general arranged to get Father Pirrone an exemption from the expulsion of Jesuits and granted permits for the family’s annual trip....
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...about to doze off in the tub, the Prince’s valet brings an urgent message from Father Pirrone ; he must speak to the Prince at once. Trying to dress before the priest...
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...is annoyed that his arrival at Donnafugata will be ruined by this silliness. He asks Father Pirrone for advice, and the priest struggles; he has always found Tancredi charming, yet he dislikes...
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Chapter 3. The Troubles of Don Fabrizio
...finds Don Calogero dressed in unsuitable black clothes, looking small but expectant and slyly intelligent. Father Pirrone sits in a corner, trying to look oblivious.
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Chapter 5. Father Pirrone Pays a Visit
Father Pirrone is from a tiny village that’s four or five hours from Palermo by cart. The...
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The journey takes five hours by horse-cart, and Father Pirrone arrives to a joyful reunion with his mother, sisters, and nephews. He’s annoyed, however, by...
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The talk quickly turns to politics, and the villagers are dismayed by Father Pirrone ’s news from his life among the nobles. He warns them of an atheistic and...
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...he asks what the Prince of Salina has to say about all these new developments. Father Pirrone finds it a difficult question to answer. He tells the herbalist that nobles live in...
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Don Pietrino falls asleep at this point, so Father Pirrone takes the opportunity to keep talking. He muses that the nobility also do a lot...
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Soon after, Father Pirrone wakes the sleeping herbalist and accompanies him out into the chilly night. He sums up...
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The next morning, Father Pirrone finds his sister, Sarina, in tears. She explains that her 18-year-old daughter, ‘Ncilina, has gotten...
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After Mass, Father Pirrone goes to his uncle Turi’s house, a wretched-looking shack. Father Pirrone says that he is...
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When Father Pirrone gets home, he finds Sarina’s husband, Vicenzino, already there. When he takes his brother-in-law aside...
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Father Pirrone returns to Palermo two days later. During the journey, he reflects that the affair between...
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Chapter 8. Relics
...childlike faith and the holy atmosphere in which they were raised, thanks to the saintly Father Pirrone .
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