“The estate office was still empty, lit silently by the sun through closed shutters. Although the scene of more frivolity than anywhere else in the villa, its appearance was of calm austerity. On whitewashed walls, reflected in wax-polished tiles, hung enormous pictures representing the various Salina estates: there, in bright colors contrasting with the gold and black frame, was Salina, the island of the twin mountains, surrounded by a sea of white-flecked waves on which pranced beflagged galleons; Querceta, its low houses grouped around the rustic church on which were converging groups of bluish-colored pilgrims; Ragattisi, tucked under mountain gorges; Argivocale, tiny in contrast to the vast plains of corn dotted with hard-working peasants; Donnafugata, with its baroque palace, goal of coaches in scarlet and green adn gilt, loaded with women, wine, and violins; and many others, all protected by a taut reassuring sky and by the Leopard grinning between long whiskers. Each picture was festive–each trying to show the enlightened empire, like wine, of the House of Salina. Ingenuous masterpieces of rustic art from the previous century; useless, though, at showing boundaries, or detailing areas or tenancies; such things remained obscure. The wealth of many centuries had been transmitted into ornament, luxury, pleasure; no more; the abolition of feudal rights had swept away duties as well as privileges; wealth, like an old wine, had let the dregs of greed, even of care and prudence, fall to the bottom of the barrel, leaving only verve and color. And thus eventually it cancelled itself out; this wealth which had achieved its object was composed now only of essential oils–and, like essential oils, it soon evaporated. Already some of the estates which looked so gay in those pictures had taken wing, leaving behind only bright-colored paintings and names. Others seemed, like those September swallows which though still present are grouped stridently on trees, ready for departure. But there were so many; it seemed they could never end.”
Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard