Like Palma, in Tomasi's world Santa Margherita also represents feudal Sicily, but it doesn't bear the austere mark of his father's authority;it is instead linked to the happy memoriesof his childhood and to his dearly beloved mother, Beatrice Tasca Filangeri di Cutò, whose family was the proprietor of the palace where Giuseppe used to spend his summer as a child and teenager and on which he partly modelled the house in Donnafugata where some memorable scenes of The Leopard are set. That Santa Margherita is the place which, in Tomasi's imagery, is most linked to his mother's welcoming arms is magically confirmed by water, the pre-eminent symbol of femininity and fertility, which by flowing in a suterranean canal near the palace allows the existence of its luxuriant park, an unexpected materialization, under the dazzling sun, of a shady oasis and of the benign spells Sicily is capable of.

Cenni storici

Itinerari Tomasiani