Aahana Swrup
‘The Leopard‘ presents an invigorating narrative about the social repercussions of the Unification of Italy movement, especially as it affects the aristocratic class. The show revolves around the central figure of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, and his family—including daughter Concetta and nephew Tancredi, who charts a stirring yet heartbreaking romance. Nonetheless, several other characters, close relatives to the Corberas, also contribute significantly to the narrative in terms of themes and storyline. Father Pirrone, the resident priest for the royal family, remains a religiously moralistic touchstone. Alternatively, Calogero and Angelica Sedara, the Prince’s eventual in-laws through the latter’s marriage to Tancredi, occupy the unique role of the rising upper class in the revolution’s aftermath. As a result, these characters inform distinct aspects of the tale and its connections to history.
Father Pirrone is Inspired by a Real-Life Family Priest
‘The Leopard,’ a TV adaptation of the eponymous novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, is a fictional tale based on the real-life influences of the author and his family. Tomasi was the 11th Prince of Lampedusa and reportedly used his great-grandfather, the 8th Lampedusa Prince Don Giulio Fabrizio Tomasi, as a counterpart for his novel’s protagonist. As a result, while Fabrizio Corbera reflects many of the author’s ideas and philosophies to an autobiographical extent, he also sports numerous similarities to his apparent namesake. This extends to the characters around the Salina Prince, whom Tomasi crafted with some inspiration from Giulio Fabrizio’s real-life family and friends. Father Pirrone remains one such character.
As Tomasi revealed in a letter, Father Pirrone is based on the real-life priest who served under his great-grandfather. In fact, even his name is unchanged from that of Giulio Fabrizio’s Jesuit priest. As such, his character retains authenticity to an actual authentic personality from the Prince’s life. It’s likely that after the character’s inception, the author improved upon the literary priest in a number of ways, with some reports suggesting modifications were made to sensitivity and intelligence. Either way, his connection to a real-life counterpart, as well as Tomasi’s unique understanding of the noble reality, ensured that Pirrone’s character contributed toward the story’s sense of realism.
The Potential Real-Life Connections Behind Calogero and Angelica Sedara
Angelica Sedara is the young daughter of the Mayor of Donnafugata, who plays an intrinsic role in the social and financial progression of the Corbera family after Garibaldi’s conquest of Sicily. Thus, her and her father, Calogero Sedara’s wealth directly comes from the benefit of the revolution heralded in the name of Italy’s Unification. Initially, when Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa came up with the woman’s character, he didn’t intentionally base her after any real-life counterpart. Even so, he was aware of the similarity between the Sedara family name and the real-life Favara royal family.
Thus, it seems Tomasi refrained from intentionally asserting any other evident parallels between Angelica Sedara and her could-be counterpart in the Favara family, Maria Favara, wife of Corrado Valguarnera. Still, the author infused enough realism behind the characters and their socioeconomic standing that it compelled readers to assume the parallels between the Sedaras and the Favaras anyway. Consequently, many people—especially descendants of the latter—noted the discrepancies between his ancestors and Tomasi’s characters. Nonetheless, the idea remained that the author likely never based Angelica and her family on the Favaras. Thus, the instance becomes an effective testament to the historical realism of Angelica’s character.
Similarly, Angelica’s father, Calogero Sedara, presents a realistic and historically accurate representation of opportunists who benefited from the Unification movement by buying up common land and Church lands for dubious prices and through dubious means. For the same reason, historians have often held up the character as an effective example of a prototype mafioso or “mafioso avant la lettre” (roughly translated to the mafia before the mafia). As such, even though neither Calogero nor Angelica have direct and intentional counterparts in history, one can draw up many equivalents for the father-daughter duo.
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