Sicilian Prince Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa authored The Leopard, the story of a Sicilian aristocratic family during Italy's unification period (1860-1871), which some believe is true account disguised as fiction. At least a sampling of the life and culture in Western Sicily can be seen through this book.

The Leopard reveals a lot about the life and political climate that affected the people in Contessa Entellina, after Garibaldi conquered Sicily and caused the demise of the Kingdom of the Two Sicily’s.

Its protagonist, a professorial descendant of the prince described in The Leopard, is probably based closely on Giuseppe himself, while "the Leopard" of the novel (Prince Fabrizio of Salina) is a composite character based on several Tomasi ancestors, particularly one who lived in the nineteenth century.

Giuseppe and his wife purchased an old family property in Via Butera, near the Lanza family's vast palazzo in Palermo

Luchino Visconti's motion picture of The Leopard, starring Burt Lancaster and the young Claudia Cardinale, was released in 1963. The movie is, if anything, too faithful to the text of the novel, but it was a critical success. Rarely has the work of so "unprolific" an author garnered so much international attention.

The Prince of Lampedusa accurately described the decline of the "old" Sicilian aristocracy and its evolution into a vulgar, superficial parody of its former self, alongside the emergence of equally vulgar, materialistic "new classes." The Leopard made the international bestseller lists in 1961.

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