The Leopard is a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa that chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento. Published posthumously in 1958 by Feltrinelli, after two rejections by the leading Italian publishing houses Mondadori and Einaudi, it became the top-selling novel in Italian history and is considered one of the most important novels in modern Italian literature. In 1959, it won Italy's highest award for fiction, the Strega Prize. In 2012, The Guardian named it as one of "the 10 best historical novels". The novel was made into an award-winning 1963 film of the same name, directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon.

Santa Margherita di Belice is a town in the Province of Agrigento in the Italian region of Sicily. It lies in southwest Sicily, 400 metres (1,300 ft) above sea level, near where the borders of the Province of Agrigento, Province of Trapani and Province of Palermo meet. It is approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi) southwest of the city of Palermo, 60 kilometres (37 mi) northwest of the city of Agrigento and sits in the Belice valley among the rivers Belice, Senore and Carboj.