Sicily Land of the Leopard Princes

Currently I am reading Sicily Land of the Leopard Princes - photographs by Jean-Bernard Naudin and text by Gerard Gefen.  The book illustrates the lifestyles of the Sicilian aristocracy from the mid-19th century to about 1920, and is meant as an unofficial companion to The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa.  Lavish colour photographs take up about eighty per cent of the book, with sections of prose and quotations from various memoirs.

I read The Leopard in 2000, and Roberto's The Viceroys shortly afterwards, and then on impulse purchased this book.  Coddled in shrink-wrap plastic the book remained in pristine condition for over eleven years on a table in my bedroom, about two hundred other unread books piled on top of it.  Eventually I worked my way down to it after numerous digressions and diversions.

Not sure why I find this class of wastrel Sicilian fops so attractive (perhaps it is the unconscious influence of Visconti).  Malthus argued that society needs a class of unproductive consumers to solve the problem of non-distribution.  Are belle epoque Sicilian aristocrats better in this role than twenty-first century bonus-acquiring hedge-fund managers?