Written by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa during the middle of the 20th century and published posthumously, The Leopard is set in Sicily during the early stages of Italian unification, nearly a century prior. The novel opens with its main character Don Fabrizio, the Salina family prince and bon vivant. The melancholy tale spans nearly 50 years, mapping the complications of the Salina family with its varying allegiances and views towards the end of the Sicilian state. It is a novel about change: a new social and political order, and a family’s subsequent reckoning with the shifting tide. Fabrizio’s nephew Tancredi, who has aligned himself with the unification efforts, proffers one of the book’s most memorable lines: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”