The more I learn, the more I realize how vast is my ignorance. Take, for example, a fascinating aristocratic Sicilian writer named Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the 12^th Duke of Palma (1896-1957).

I’d never heard of him. But diving into his biography in Wikipedia, to learn about the novel behind the new Netflix series “The Leopard,” I am shaken by how little I know about Italian writers. Tomasi, or is it Lampedusa?, may have been the most literary Italian of his time, based on his ceaseless reading in several languages (though unknown because he did almost nothing BUT read in his privileged solitude). He wrote a 1,000-page critique of English literature from Bede to Graham Greene, and his only novel, Gattopardo, (actually a sort of lynx, not a leopard) was rejected by publishers until after his death at 59.

Tomasi was inspired to write The Leopard, now a gorgeous Netflix series, after attending a gathering of his literary friends with his cousin, a famous poet named Lucio Piccolo. (Never heard of him either.) Wikipedia says that when Tomasi was a child, his grandmother read the popular adventure novels of Emilio Salgari to him. (I never heard of Salgari either, though his many sci-fi and adventure novels were more widely read than Dante in Italy).

But I do recognize something, faintly, in the sad lavish world of “The Leopard” and in Tomasi. He reminds me of Nabokov, a little of Tolstoy, living as a literary émigré between his ruined palazzo and bohemian Europe.

In “The Leopard,” a Sicilian prince holds to principles of decency and family in the face of the tumultuous unification of Italy. Prince Fabrizio is flawed and decadent, but so is the revolution – a romantic Italian chaos of kingdom, corruption and liberalism. This complex view back at 1860 and its historic divisions of ancient and modern Italy is something I know. It’s the coming of the Civil War among my own great-great-great grandparents. It’s family, inheritance, land, and remembrance.

It’s also testing of our character in 2025. More on that tomorrow.