The Princess and the Palazzo
Sicily’s Palazzo Gangi, the lavish setting of the ballroom scene in Visconti’s 'The Leopard,' was on the brink of ruin when a princess stepped in and brought it back to life.
Photography by Callicles
The very first time the princess saw the palazzo she and her husband were to inherit, in 1995, Carine Vanni Calvello Mantegna di Gangi discovered a derelict, 8,000-square-meter (86,000-square-foot) ruin, with broken windows and dust-covered floors. “It was very sad,” she says. “The mural paintings were completely damaged. The furniture was in a dreadful state, and some of the cherubs had lost their legs. There had been a flood… It was terrible. The impression I had was that the house was disappearing.”
It was impossible to recognize the ballroom that had once been the set for one of history’s greatest films, Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), in which the young Tancredi, played by Alain Delon, watches as his fiancée, the voluptuous Claudia Cardinale, is swept off her feet by Don Fabrizio, prince of Salina (Burt Lancaster), for one last waltz, composed by Nino Rota.
Directed by Luchino Visconti, the film was an adaptation of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s sole novel, published posthumously in 1958. It describes the end of an era in Italian history, a moment when Sicilian aristocracy faced the prospect of decline with the arrival of a revolutionary movement led by Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860, supported by the rising bourgeoisie. The film shows Don Fabrizio observing his country’s shifts with a certain melancholy, as his nephew Tancredi falls in love with Angelica (Cardinale), the mayor’s beautiful and wealthy daughter.
The Leopard, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1963, celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2023. If the film has transcended the years and marked its audience so deeply, it is in part due to its stunning set, the Palazzo Gangi, and the eccentric stories about filming the unforgettable ballroom sequence there, over 48 days, in the scorching heat of Palermo, Sicily.
Laurence Schifano, a professor of literature and film at Paris Nanterre University specializing in Italian cinema, wrote the dense and fascinating biography Visconti: Une vie exposée (Visconti: A Life on Display, Folio-Gallimard). She explains why the director chose to set an essential scene of his film in this unique historical landmark: “Palaces have an autobiographical resonance for Visconti, who was an aristocrat. He needed to work in places that spoke about history. Palermo is beautiful, yet surrounded by ruins. Many palaces are left abandoned. When Visconti arrived in Sicily to film, he brought a lot of work to the inhabitants by restoring and renovating palaces and towns such as Ciminà. To him, these places had voices of their own. They were archives made of stone, but he considered them to be living archives. The palaces were not dead to him. It wasn’t a memorial. There’s a sensuality in his process that’s connected to memory. He was like a medium, bringing back to life the shadows of the past.”
In Schifano’s biography, Claudia Cardinale described the meticulous work that went into creating the spectacle. “Luchino was extremely demanding,” she said. “Nothing escaped him, and every detail had to be perfectly authentic. On the set, he was the absolute master, the last prince of cinema. Visconti was really a god. To enter a space he was filming in was like entering a temple. You could hear a pin drop.”
While 300 extras melted in the unbearable heat during filming, fresh flowers were sent to set every day from San Remo, and thousands of candles burning in the Murano chandeliers needed to be replaced every hour. To add to the drama, Cardinale said, “after the film, my hairdresser had a nervous breakdown because my hairdo was so complicated.”
In the years after the epic shoot, the palace was gradually decimated by the numerous weddings organized there during the 1980s. The Palazzo Gangi has belonged to the family of Carine Vanni Mantegna’s husband since 1652. When her mother-in-law passed away, the princess made a commitment to bring the extraordinary house back to life. “We restored 350 pieces of furniture, 78 murals above the doors, the five vaulted ceilings, the terrace, the stairway,” she says. “It’s insane and never-ending. Every day, something new needs to be repaired.” The fact that the Palazzo Gangi still exists today, with its original period decor, is thanks to the princess, who made a great personal sacrifice to lead and finance the restoration without support from the Italian government.
The grand house is unique in that, through centuries and generations, it has been owned by a family of extravagant and eclectic art collectors. In 1750, the palazzo was inherited by Prince Pietro Valguarnera, a genius with flamboyant ambitions. He and his wife Marianna hired a brilliant 24-year-old architect, Andrea Giganti, to create a new wing in the palace and build the Gallery of Mirrors in Baroque rococo style. Inspired by the first Opéra in Nancy, the gallery is known for its three-dimensional double ceiling and its floor made of Vietri majolica, adorned with a depiction of the 12 labors of Hercules with its famous leopards. With its exceptional acoustics, the palazzo was conceived for hosting parties and listening to music. Composers including Wagner and Stravinsky were temporary residents.
The specificity of Baroque Sicilian architecture was its whimsical fantasy. “The Sicilian architects designed everything themselves: the woodwork, the furniture, the tapestries, the patterns,” the princess explains. “There was a love and respect for the artisan’s craftsmanship. What is exceptional is Sicily’s unique geographic situation. It’s on the Mediterranean Sea and was always inspired by multiple civilizations. The palazzo was never a museum – it has always felt like a house. There are so many objects collected from all around the world: samurai swords; Asian, French and German porcelains; Mongolian furniture. You can feel that people lived here, that they touched these objects, and through restoration, you understand how they lived. That’s what I love: everyone has left a trace. Restoration is all about leading these little investigations, entering people’s minds.”
In many ways, the Palazzo Gangi echoes Visconti’s film: both are baroque, extravagant works of art that allow us to reflect on the passage of time. The princess confides that the palazzo has many ghost stories. Strange, inexplicable events have occurred. Although she has a Cartesian spirit, the princess can’t help but believe that some of her husband’s ancestors still haunt the Palazzo Gangi, keeping a protective eye over one of Sicily’s greatest treasures.
This feature was originally published in Mastermind 13 – buy all issues here.