In 1963 Luchino Visconti signed Il Gattopardo, one of Italy’s most ambitious postwar productions, based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel of the same name. The film, starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon, confronted a literary and visual challenge: to return to the screen the complex historical, social and cultural stratification of Sicily between the end of the Bourbon Kingdom and the rise of the new unified order. To do so, Visconti chose with extreme precision every setting in which to place the narrative sequences. The choice of locations was never random. On the contrary, it responded to philological, scenographic and symbolic criteria. Filming took place between Rome, Palermo and various towns in the Sicilian hinterland, in locations that ranged from aristocratic palaces to provincial churches, from urban squares to barren countryside.
Some sets were reconstructed or adapted for cinematic needs, others were selected after capillary surveys, without substantial changes. The result was a detailed and fragmented map that, although it does not correspond geographically to the film’s narrative itinerary, gives a precise idea of Visconti’s imagery. From the ballroom of Palazzo Valguarnera-Gangi to the Filangeri-Cutò estate, from Ariccia to Ciminna, each place was chosen for function and scenic rendering, rather than for its actual location. Visconti’s is a journey through the geography of the set, but also the method of the work and his crew, between historical fidelity, production needs and aesthetic construction.
In the Renaissance Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, in the province of Rome, some of the film’s most intimate scenes were shot, including the Prince of Salina’s bedroom, dining room and study with fireplace. The building, dating back to the 16th century, displays understated Baroque architecture, in which Visconti set up sets rich in period objects to restore credible historical atmosphere.
In the Sicilian capital, the production was the guest of Villa Boscogrande, a farmhouse transformed for the occasion into the Prince’s city domicile. It is an 18th-century mansion surrounded by gardens, whose rooms offered an aristocratic base evoking Risorgimento nobility. Palazzo Valguarnera-Gangi, located in Piazza Croce dei Vespri, hosts the final ball: the late Baroque building, with frescoed rooms and carved ceilings, was cleared of anachronistic elements and decorated with tens of thousands of candles to faithfully restore the 19th-century atmosphere.
The exterior sequences related to the landing of the Thousand were set in Palermo’s central squares, probably in the areas associated with Via Maqueda and Piazza Magione, recreated to symbolize the arrival of Garibaldi’s troops. Another square, identified as that of San Giovanni Decollato, served as the setting for the dramatic shooting of civilians by Bourbon troops, placed in the context of May 27, 1860.
The village of Ciminna, in the province of Palermo, became the “summer residence” of the Salina family. Some buildings were adapted or built from scratch to house the corresponding scenes of Donnafugata. The church of Santa Maria Maddalena or Mother Church, dating from the 13th century, hosted the first mass, while a civil building served as the seat of Mayor Sedara, receiving the Prince, Don Onofrio and Father Pirrone.
Near Piana degli Albanesi (Palermo), the production shot the scene in which a Garibaldi blockade tries to stop Salina and Tancredi’s caravan. Instead, in Contrada Ducco, along SP 103, takes place the brief stop of the character of Tancredi (Alain Delon) during the journey to Donnafugata.
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| The locations of the film The Leopard: all the filming destinations for Visconti's film |
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