Founded in 1637 by Giulio Tomasi, it is the place of origin of the family's feudal title and it is also a visible expression of the strict mysticism of the Tomasi forefathers, For the writer it represents feudal Sicily, with its large rural dominions, with its sunny landscape whose harsh strength seems to be reflected in the religious strictness of his forefathers.
Palma is twenty kilometres away from Agrigento. Built on an uneven territory, on a terrace at the feet of a mountain, it interrupts the level line of the coast, overlooking from high above the African sea. On the shore, fine sand beaches surmountedby tall clagey gullies alternate with rough cliffs. In the surrounding countryside, dominated by Mediterranean vegetation, almonds, grapevines and olives are cultivated.
During the bronze age its territory was the centre of an unusual culture which associated the mineral art of sulphur to the construction of cult fences. Montegrande, the massif that stands on the south-western border of the territory of Palma, was in fact, towards the XV century b.C., the main centre for sulphur exports in the eastern Mediterranean.After the Roman and Byzantine periods, in Thirteen hundred the local lords were the Chiaramonte, who had as a matter of fact usurped the power of the crown and who built Montechiaro castle.
The Spanish monarchy later re-established its power and distributed their feuds to its faithful followers. Montechiaro and Lampedusa were given to Palmerio De Caro, whose family became related to the Tomasi family towards the end of the sixteenth century.

The latter considered their feud as a centre of Christian colonisation marked by a strong Counter-Reformation religiosity, reflected the architectural and decorative characteristics found in Palma, wich are uique in the context of seventeenth century Sicilian culture. Today the Saint Duke, Giulio I Tomasi, Sister Maria Crocifissa, Isabella Domenica Tomasi, and Giuseppe Maria Tomasi, canonized in 1968, are still remembered and venerated by the inhabitants of Palma.
The author of The Leopard only visited the town in the last years of his life, shorlty after starting to write the novel and, as Gioacchino Tomasi Lanza writes "When he returned he was enthusiastic. In Palma he had no significant properties, he was not the great landowner of the town and the Tomasi family hadn't been that either for almost two centuries, but he was descended from the saints, a piece of that land had been made different from any other Sicilian feudal foundation by the mystic climate of his family. This being the starting point, the encounter was a happy one. He observed delighted the sacerty of the mother church and the interior of the church, and he was particularly moved by the warm welcome he recieved from the Benedictine community of the SS. Rosario."
The extent to wich the writer's imagination was struck by the church and the convent, emerges from the page of The Leopard that describes the visit that the prince of Salina pays to the monastery in Donnafugata: "Centuries-old tradition required that the day following their arrival the Salina family should visit the Convent of the Holy Ghost to pray the tomb of Blessed Corbera, forebear of the prince and foundress of the convent (…) The Convent of the Holy Ghost had a rigid rule of enclosure and entry was severely forbidden to men. That was the Prince particoularly ejoyed visiting it, for he, as direct descendant of the foundress, was not excluded: and of this privilege, sgared only with the King of Naples, he was both jealous and childishly proud.
Everything about the place pleased him, beginning with the humble simplicity of the parlour, with its barrel vaulted ceiling centred on the Leopard (…) He liked the look of the nuns with their white wimples of purest white linen in tiny pleats gleaming against the rough black robes; he was edified at hearing for the hundredth time the Mother Abbess describe the Blessed One's ingenuous miracles (…) he liked the almond cakes which the nuns made up from an ancient recipe, he liked listening to the Office chanted in choir, and he was even quite happy to pay over the community a not inconsiderable portion of his own income, in accordance with the act of foundation".