In May 1860, the Salinas—a Sicilian noble family who lives in a palace outside Palermo, Sicily—have just finished their daily Rosary recitation. The ceiling of the ornate drawing room is painted with ancient Roman deities holding the family shield, which displays a leopard. The head of the family, Dom Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, is feeling discontent. He perceives that his family, and the entire Sicilian noble class, are sliding into decline—but he feels powerless to stop this.
After the Rosary, the Prince ponders the political changes that are imminent in Sicily. Most nobles oppose the rumored revolution (led by Italian nationalist Garibaldi), and the Prince shares their allegiance to the King and the Catholic Church. But he also believes that the monarchy fails to live up to its ideals. That night, the Prince visits his favorite prostitute. He justifies this to himself with the excuse that his wife, Princess Maria Stella, can no longer satisfy him—though he pities her once he returns home.
The next morning, Tancredi, the Prince’s beloved nephew, visits and talks about Garibaldi’s “Red Shirt” rebels, whom he plans to join. Tancredi explains that if the nobility wants things to remain the same, then some things must change. This moves the Prince, yet he’s also annoyed by his employees’ optimism about the revolution. He believes that “liberals” are greedy and self-interested; there will be no sweeping changes in Sicily. Meanwhile, the Prince’s friend and household priest, Father Pirrone, is primarily concerned with how the revolution will impact on the Catholic Church.
Later that summer, the Salina family travels to their rural estate at Donnafugata, the Prince’s favorite place. Tancredi is with them, having fought with the Red Shirts in May. The Prince is glad to escape Palermo, which is still in an uproar over Garibaldi’s invasion and the ensuing revolution. However, he still believes that Sicily will remain the same. The traditional greeting at Donnafugata further reassures him; everything is the way it has always been. However, when the Prince invites the villagers to visit the Salina estate, everyone is startled—the Prince has never sounded so democratic before. From this moment forward, Donnafugata’s people think less of the Prince.
That afternoon, the Prince is troubled to learn that his daughter Concetta is in love with Tancredi. Later, Donnafugata’s new mayor, Don Calogero Sedàra, arrives for dinner dressed extravagantly. The mayor’s teenage daughter, Angelica, makes an even more stunning entrance, quickly catching Tancredi’s eye. Over dinner, Tancredi tells Angelica a bawdy story from his time as a soldier, which deeply offends Concetta. The next day, the Prince notices that Tancredi has made a romantic call on Angelica.
Two months later, Tancredi sends a letter to the Prince confessing his love for Angelica and asking his uncle to negotiate a marriage. The Prince discusses the Sedàras with his friend Tumeo: despite the family’s checkered past and Tumeo’s horror at a possible marriage alliance, the Prince convinces himself that the class disparity between Tancredi and Angelica will actually benefit the Salina family politically. Later that day, Don Calogero and the Prince agree on Tancredi’s and Angelica’s engagement.
In November, Tancredi and Angelica begin spending a lot of time at the Salinas’ palace. Tancredi and Angelica spend hours exploring, stealing kisses, and resisting the temptation to have sex. These are the happiest days of their relationship—their future marriage proves to be a great disappointment. Around the same time, a government official named Chevalley visits the Prince and invites him to join the newly formed Italian Senate. The Prince immediately declines, explaining that it’s too late for the long-isolated and foreign-dominated Sicily to participate in a modern State. He recommends Don Calogero Sedàra for the role instead.
A year later, in November 1862, the Salinas go to a ball in Palermo. The Prince wanders through the party, feeling out of place in every group and sensing that the beauty of palaces like these will soon fade away. As the Prince walks home at dawn, he longs for death, an end to perpetual change and decline.
Twenty-five years later, the Prince is dying. He reflects on his family: none of his offspring, he decides, will truly carry on the Salina legacy. Such a legacy resides in tradition and memory, and his children’s and grandson’s experiences have become blandly middle-class—suggesting that Garibaldi has won after all. After receiving the last rites, the Prince tries to calculate how much of his life has consisted of true happiness, and the mental effort causes him to have a stroke. A short time later, as his weeping family gathers at his bedside, the Prince has a vision of death as a beautiful young woman who gently leads him away.
In 1910, several decades after the Prince’s death, a group of clerics gathers in the elderly Salina sisters’ house to question the authenticity of their religious relics. Concetta, Carolina, and Caterina are all strong-willed spinsters renowned for their devout Catholicism; they are especially famous for these relics. Concetta is upset because she knows that this will be the last nail in the coffin of the Salinas’ reputation—they no longer have property or wealth, only piety.
The next day, a Vatican expert visits the Salina chapel and determines that only a handful of their relics are authentic. Feeling numb, Concetta goes to her bedroom. Suddenly, she can no longer stand the presence of a certain rug, which is actually the preserved skin of the Prince’s old favorite dog, Bendicò. She orders a maid to discard the rug. As the rug is flung across the courtyard, its mid-air shape briefly resembles a leopard. Then, it collapses on the garbage heap.
