Art at the service of Villa Salina and Donnafugata in the tv series 'The Leopard'
ART AND LOCATIONS: CINEMA IN DETAIL
The historical locations featured in the TV series The Leopard are not limited to the monuments, churches and monasteries described in the first instalment of this column, which, as always, combines art and cinema.
Eighteenth-century Villa Valguarnera in Bagheria was chosen to represent Villa Salina, the residence of Prince Fabrizio Corbera (Kim Rossi Stuart) and his family and a focal point in the story, In recent years, it has featured in Valeria Golino's The Art of Joy and Ferzan Ozpetek's The Goddess of Fortune (2019).
The dramatic structure, its side wings acting as exedras to the central body, set back from the main entrance, balances the interior, filmed in Palazzo Comitini, today the town hall of Palermo. This late-Baroque building, commissioned by Michele Gravina y Cruillas, Prince of Comitini, was built between 1768 and 1771 and is located in the city's historic centre, Via Maqueda 100, near the Pretoria Fountain and the Quattro Canti (see below).
The sumptuous Sala Martorana (named in tribute to the Palermitan painter Gioacchino Martorana who decorated it (1770 on) has provided a recurring setting for the series. Fifteen mirrors, two monumental Murano chandeliers, and a beautiful Neapolitan majolica floor (work of the Attanasios) make it a triumph of the sacred and the profane, as demonstrated by the full-length portrait of the patron Michele Gravina y Cruillas, and the twelve overdoor tableaux of adaptations of biblical and mythological scenes: 17th-century works from the workshops of Pietro Novelli, Mattia Preti, Nicolas Regnier, Massimo Stanzione, and Matthias Stomer.
The most iconographically interesting area, however, is the ceiling, presented in Ep. 1, whose painted ovals present a full-blown Baroque backdrop. In the corners, the Cardinal Virtues are seated on clouds, while in the centre, Truth drives a chariot drawn by cupids, surrounded by trumpeting angels whosesound echoes through scrolls that read "true pleasure triumphs" and "the torment of turbid desires forms the triumph of true pleasure." Who said painting should be silent?
- © Lucia Iuorio/Netflix
Villa Salina includes a room with a fireplace - where the family recites the rosary in Episode 1 and later dress in mourning for Paolo Salina's funeral - which is actually in Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. Above the fireplace, is the coat of arms with six eight-pointed stars divided by a crenellated band belonging to Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew and cardinal to Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605), and the fresco that surrounds it, shown on screen from Concetta’s perspective as she gazes around on her return from the convent.
The paintings are by Giuseppe Valeriani (c. 1708/1761), the same artist who painted the Goddess Rome in Villa Parisi, Monteporzio Catone, seen in a beautiful production still of Concetta/Benedetta Porcaroli in front of the fresco.
The fictional town of Donnafugata, central to the novel as the summer residence of the princely Salina family, was created for the screen by combining a range of locations. The village centre is Piazza Duomo, Syracuse, on the upper part of the island of Ortigia, rebuilt in Baroque style after the dramatic earthquake of 1693. In addition to the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose interior contains the columns of the ancient Temple of Athena, the square also features Palazzo Beneventano del Bosco, Palazzo Vermexio, and the Church of Santa Lucia alla Badia. Another recurring setting is the Chapel of Donnafugata, probably borrowed again from Villa Parisi, Monte Porzio Catone, a room which, in 1741, was decorated with tapestries based on designs by Monsignor Sergardi, on the occasion of the visit of Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini (1740-1758).
The Grand Ball, key event in the story, which takes place in the Chapter 6 of the novel at Palazzo Ponteleone, when Don Fabrizio and Angelica dance together before the assembled company, was shot in the ballroom of the Grand Hotel Plaza in Rome. It's impossible not to think of the magnificence of Luchino Visconti’s version, which starred Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale, and was, ironically, filmed at Palazzo Valguarnera-Gangi, the Valguarnera family's residence in Palermo.
The Roman building, however, was originally built as Palazzo Lozzano between 1834 and 1837, designed by Antonio Sarti, and transformed by the same Bolognese architect between 1862 and 1864for its new purpose. The enormous interiorin the luxury hotel at Via del Corso 126, with its 309 square meters and portico with an entablature supported by pilasters and paired columns, was perfect for lending elegance to an iconic sequence. This is also where Pietro Mascagni's piano is usually housed; he lived at the Plaza from 1927 to 1945.
In addition to Palermo, The Leopard moves part of its story in the final episodes to Turin, which will be the focus of the final instalment in this column.
Read the earlier part of this in-depth analysis:
1. The real and re-set Palermo in the tv series 'The Leopard'