¹ Montale's article, which appeared originally in Corriere della sera, 12 Dec. 1958, is reprinted in Giuseppe Samonà, Il Gattopardo, i Racconti, Lampedusa (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1974), pp. 364-68; Blasucci's essay “Il Gattopardo,” Belfagor, 14 (1959), 117-21, is summarized and in part quoted in Samonà (pp. 370-72). In spite of these demurrers on specific issues, most critics recognized that Lampedusa was a mature writer and his novel of high literary quality.

² Simonetta Salvestroni, “Analisi del Gattopardo” and “La struttura e lo stile del Gattopardo,” Filologia e letteratura, 17 (1971), 101-28 and 209-37, now in her book Tomasi di Lampedusa (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1973), is the first to have rebutted the notion of structural deficiency by referring to specific patterns in the text. The most conspicuous feature of the novel's construction, she contends, is the dialectic alternation of passages expressing contrasting moods of bitterness and serenity, of displeasure and pleasure recovered. Hence the first chapter divides into two balanced halves, with Tancredi's departure animating a change in the general atmosphere and in the Prince's disposition from anxiety to tranquillity. She finds the same pattern of thesis-antithesis in other chapters and argues that Lampedusa employs this narrative procedure to emphasize the dialectic of pain-pleasure and the contradictory nature of life. But concerning the contrasting moods of Ch. i, it does not seem helpful to conclude that the author wanted to show how things might change within so short a period as twenty-four hours. More perceptive is her observation that the novel's “static” narrative results in a “svolgimento tutt'altro che lineare” (p. 212). Salvestroni defends the inclusion of Ch. v, but Olga Ragusa makes a better case for its thematic relevance to the preceding chapter. Her essay, “'Stendhal, Lampedusa and the Novel,” Comparative Literature Studies, 10 (1973), 195-228, is a gold mine of fine insights into a variety of topics concerning the novel and its history and contains a useful commentary on the critical bibliography. Criticism of the inclusion of Ch. v (and of Ch. viii) has not, however, entirely abated. See Giancarlo Buzzi's provocative if polemical study Invito alla lettura di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Milan: Mursia, 1972), pp. 125-34.

³ On the topic of “ring structure” or “concentric symmetry” (also known as “recessed symmetry”) in literature, terms used by Cedric H. Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition (1958; rpt. New York: Norton, 1965), to describe elaborate structural patterns in the Iliad, see the recent and informative discussion by R. G. Peterson, “Critical Calculations: Measure and Symmetry in Literature,” PMLA, 91 (1976), 367-75, and Alastair Fowler, Triumphal Forms: Structural Patterns in Elizabethan Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970), pp. 91-92.

⁴ It will be noted that the “Indice” to the original edition of Il Gattopardo (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1958), edited by Giorgio Bassani, on which all of my citations are based, contains in fact fourteen subtitles for the twelve actual narrative sections. The discrepancy derives from the fact that the three summaries “In vettura per Palermo,” “Andando da Mariannina,” and “Il ritorno a S. Lorenzo” all refer to a single section (pp. 33-40), to different moments in a single narrative episode. A different editorial practice has been used for the edition based on the 1957 holograph manuscript, Il Gattopardo (completo): Edizione conforme al manoscritto del 1957 (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1969), for the text of Ch. i has been divided into fourteen sections to correspond to the fourteen subtitle summaries, and page references have been inserted after each summary. I believe Bassani's edition is preferable in this as in a number of other instances, for it recognizes the narrative coherence of the episode in which Fabrizio journeys to his lover, visits her, and returns home. It is conceived as a self-contained unit, one that discreetly skips over any direct description of the Prince in Mariannina's boudoir, focusing rather on his thoughts about her and, in that context, about previous lovers. In other instances, the 1969 edition based on the 1957 holograph resolves similar textual problems by conflating two subtitles to refer to a single narrative section (e.g., in Ch. ii, “Viaggio per Donnafugata—La tappa, 34” and in Ch. v, “Arrivo di Padre Pirrone a S. Cono. Conversazione con gli amici e l'erbuario,” where the period after “Cono” has replaced the dash of the Bassani 1958 edition). Even Lampedusa's final longhand version does not seem to have been in perfect order. I would argue that a strict correlation between the subtitles and narrative breaks is not required as indispensable evidence that the chiastic arrangement of scenes in Ch. i indeed does obtain.

⁵ It is interesting to note that Il Gattopardo, as Lampedusa first conceived it, was to have only three chapters (the first chapter and the last two chapters as we have them now), each bearing an inscription date (1860, 1885, 1910) indicating the passage of twenty-five years (see Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi's introduction to Il Gattopardo (completo), p. x). One can see then how the character of Calogero Sedara is developed from the prototype Russo and how the relationship of Tancredi and Angelica has its conception in the passing observation “E tua figlia [Russo's daughter], già prima, avrà sposato uno di noi, magari anche questo stesso Tancredi” ‘And your daughter [Russo's], even before, will have married one of us, perhaps even Tancredi himself’ (p. 50). The original tripartite division of the novel, incidentally, reflects Lampedusa's continual concern with symmetry.

⁶ In spite of the promise held out by the Olympian divinities in the affreschi, the aristocracy in its present form, he perceives, will pass away with time: “Viviamo in una realtà mobile…. Alla Santa Chiesa è stata esplicitamente promessa l'immortalità; a noi, in quanto classe sociale, no” ‘We live in a changing reality…. Immortality has been explicitly promised to Holy Church; to us, as a social class, it has not’ (p. 55).

⁷ At Donnafugata (Ch. ii), Fabrizio is said not to feel “alcun rimpianto per le pacifiche serate in osservatorio, per le occasionali visite a Mariannina” ‘any regret for the peaceful evenings in the observatory, for the occasional visits to Mariannina’ (p. 71).

⁸ “Tale era la quiete che le scoperte politiche della mattinata avevano instaurato nell'anima del Principe, che egli non fece altro che sorridere di ciò che in altro momento gli sarebbe apparsa insolenza” ‘Such was the peace that the morning's political discoveries had instilled in the Prince's mind that he could only smile at what would on another occasion have seemed to him impudence’ (p. 53).

⁹ See pp. 27 and 59.

¹⁰ It is more than merely ironic that Paolo dies by falling from his horse, his only interest in the world. In the context of the novel's thematics, his death constitutes a kind of contrapasso to the folly of his mindless aristocratic leisure.

¹¹ Earlier I argued that the Piedmontese general eclipses and replaces the classical deity in the scheme of symbolic correspondences, but here the Prince appears, in his inner monologue, to think in terms of equivalence rather than supersession. I believe, however, that Lampedusa's point is grounded both in difference and in similarity. Garibaldi's displacement of Vulcan symbolizes, to be sure, the ushering in of the bourgeoisie and the end of the aristocracy, and this is the essential idea behind the association. Vulcan is a divinity, an immortal, and represents the order of privilege; Garibaldi belongs to a lower level of being and can lay no claim to immortality. But Garibaldi shares with Vulcan a number of attributes, which make his eclipse of this (and not another) pagan god so appropriate. Besides the stated physiognomic similarity (each wears a beard), both are linked to war, Vulcan as God of Fire and maker of weapons and Garibaldi as soldier general. Mars, the God of War, might at first seem a better choice, but the myth of Vulcan links him in a special way to Sicily, for his favorite abodes on earth were volcanic islands. And finally, Lampedusa's choice may well have been motivated by the fact that both Garibaldi and Vulcan were lame, Garibaldi having been wounded in the foot at the battle of Aspromonte, and, as Colonel Pallavicino reports to Fabrizio at the ball, “reso zoppo per tutta la vita” ‘rendered lame for the rest of his life’ (p. 276). The import of these associations is to establish sufficient grounds of similarity so that the essential differences will stand out forcefully. Superficially Garibaldi resembles Vulcan, but the point of the analogy here is to emphasize the political changes that have taken place.

¹² There are, moreover, thematic and imagistic correspondences between the opening and closing scenes of the novel. See John Gilbert, “The Metamorphosis of the Gods in Il Gattopardo,” Modern Language Notes, 81 (1966), p. 24; and Jeffrey Meyers, “Symbol and Structure in The Leopard,” Italian Quarterly, 9 (1965), p. 67. For Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi's reminiscences, see reference in n. 5 above.

¹³ Olga Ragusa has perceptively pointed this out (p. 213). Both she (pp. 210-13) and Samonà (pp. 129-48) have argued the chapter's relevance and unity with the rest of the novel, without, however, drawing attention to the structural pattern it forms with Ch. iv.

¹⁴ Just as Lampedusa unobtrusively slips into the first and last chapters references to the dates on which events take place, so too the mention of Indian summer —which, as “la vera stagione di voluttà in Sicilia” ‘the real season of sensuality in Sicily,‘ is an appropriate setting for Angelica and Tancredi's erotic interlude in the labyrinthine recesses of the Donnafugata palace and for Santino's seduction of Angelina—is introduced obliquely (see pp. 182 and 246).

¹⁵ “ ‘Si capisce, Vincenzino,’ disse, ‘che anch'io voglio contribuire al riassestamento di tutto. Quella carta privata che mi assicura la proprietà di quanto mi spetta nell'eredità della Buon'Anima, te la rimanderò da Palermo, stracciata’ ” ‘ “You understand, Vincenzino,” he said, “that I too want to contribute to the resettlement of everything. That private agreement that guarantees me possession of my share of my father's inheritance, I'll send it back to you from Palermo, torn up”‘ (p. 245). It is typical of Lampedusa's sense of irony that Pirrone's sacrifice should take place shortly after he has celebrated the office of “il Divino Sacrifizio.”

¹⁶ There is a parallel, too, between those who gain. Turi, Santino's father, will acquire the almond grove, just as Tancredi will marry into Sedara's wealth.

¹⁷ Fabrizio's peroration to Chevalley, beginning with “Il sonno, caro Chevalley, il sonno è ciò che i Siciliani vogliono” ‘Sleep, my dear Chevalley, sleep, that's what the Sicilians want’ (p. 210), is considered by most critics to be the quintessence of Lampedusa's pessimistic vision of Sicily and to have the function of “message.” The scene of don Pietrino dozing during Pirrone's discourse rather serves to validate what the Prince has been saying.

¹⁸ The lines contain an allusion to the “aristocracies” of the United States (“anzianità di presenza di un luogo”) and the Soviet Union (“pretesa miglior conoscenza di qualche testo presunto sacro”), as Leonardo Sciascia was the first to observe (quoted in Samonà, p. 411). The point is that in Lampedusa's vision an aristocracy (i.e., a ruling class) is an inevitable institution of every society; only the basis for election changes.

¹⁹ It will be noticed that the criterion for division into sections is based strictly on content (episodic material) and not on formal demarcations as in Ch. i. The lack of such formal clues in this instance does not, however, weaken, much less invalidate, my claim that the scenes are chiastically ordered. Critics are in agreement that each chapter is composed of two parts (see, e.g., Salvestroni, “La struttura e lo stile del Gattopardo,” p. 216) and such a division should be obvious to any reader.

²⁰ See Peterson's article, cited in n. 3 above, pp. 373-74.