Giuseppe di Lampedusa, aged two.

Giulio Tomasi, Prince of Lampedusa, Giuseppe’s great-grandfather.

The ruins of Santa Margherita di Belice, country house of the Filangeri di Cutò and inspiration for Donnafugata.

The family’s private balcony in the chapel at Santa Margherita di Belice.

Beatrice Mastrogiovanni Tasca e Filangeri di Cutò, Duchess of Palma, later Princess Lampedusa. Giuseppe’s mother.

Giuseppe, aged about fourteen, with his French governess, Jeanne, and Totò Ferraro.

Giuseppe posing in military uniform in a photographer’s studio, probably in 1917.

Capo d’Orlando, the home of the Piccolo family, overlooking the sea on Sicily’s northern coast.

Stomersee, Latvia, the family home of Giuseppe’s wife, Alessandra Wolff.

Giuseppe at Capo d’Orlando in December 1926, a few days before his thirtieth birthday. On the left is his cousin Lucio Piccolo.

Giuseppe and Alessandra with two of their dogs at Stomersee.

The dilapidated Villa Lampedusa today. Although Giuseppe never lived there, he used it as a model for the Villa Salina in The Leopard.

The cathedral at Palma di Montechiaro, the town that was once the feudal base of the Lampedusas.

The Lampedusas in Palermo in the 1930s.

Via Butera, Palermo. Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s home for the last decade of his life.

      The terrace and the eighteenth-century front overlooking the marine drive. The former Hotel Trinacria (where Don Fabrizio died in The Leopard) is in the background.

The nineteenthcentury facade in Via Butera.

Lampedusa’s library of historical books in Via Butera.

Crab, the favourite spaniel of the Lampedusas.

Gioacchino Lanza, Lucio Piccolo and Giuseppe di Lampedusa.

Lampedusa and Gioacchino Lanza in the ruined castle of Montechiaro, 1955.

One of the last photographs of Giuseppe di Lampedusa.

The tomb of Giuseppe and Alessandra di Lampedusa in the Capuchin cemetery in Palermo.