No 1900s book has generated such interest in every field of art: from cinema and theatre, to literature and painting as has Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's 'The Leopard'. Every Italian master, from Luchino Visconti to Leonardo Sciascia, has been keen to revive the work in their own medium, letting it shine once again, but without snuffing out its original character.

Until Bruno Caruso took up his brush, 'the Leopard' remained unconquered in paint, almost as if it had refused to be drawn. From his canvases emanates an understanding, a Sicilian passion similar to that of the original itself.

Roman Holiday.

I slump into a worn armchair, worn myself, another victim of the Roman summer. Caruso remains silent at his desk finishing a sketch of Nijinsky for a future project on the Sicilian 'Teatro Biondo.' Once done, he acknowledges my presence with an offer of water, which I cannot but accept. He smiles and slowly rises from his chair, muscular frame put to work, 75 years of life well concealed, and sidestepping various leaning canvases, leaves me alone to muse at my new surroundings.

Caruso first met Lampedusa in 1947, 10 years before 'the Leopard' found a publisher and its author gave up his final breath. They spoke many a time over the years as ordinary men, both still unknown in their future fields, and both with a keen eye on their own futures.

These meetings were forgotten until, now a celebrated artist, Caruso happened upon a book lying discarded on a seat while travelling on the direct train Rome-Paris. That book was 'The Leopard', and it so captivated him that he finished it in one sitting and re-read it many times during his stay. Gradually memories of those early meetings flooded back.

(The following interview is part translated from notes, and part written from memory)

"When I first met The Prince in Palermo, like so many other Palermitans, he was still shocked by the terrible bombardments which had reduced our city to rubble. Lampedusa himself had first hand experience of loss, his house having been hit and destroyed, a building rich with memories of his lifetime. He approached me wishing to join my Soviet cinema club. The schedule included such Russian classics as 'Battleship Potemkin', and 'The Strike', but I wished also to delve into French Realism, German Expressionism, and The American Silent of which Charlie Chaplin was a favourite. I drew up a membership for him and his wife, and we bade each other farewell till 1948 when the screenings began."

When asked about his impressions of the Prince, Caruso hesitates.

"The Lampedusas frequented our cinema club almost obsessively, choosing to sit isolated in the red armchairs in the far left corner of the theatre, and remain on the fringe of the post film discussions. The only words exchanged on his part were words of wonder at how we obtained the reels. The members, on finding out they were in the company of royals adopted a silent air of awe coupled with warm hospitality in his company. Stripped of the title, however, Lampedusa seemed just like any of them: a kind man with a tired air about him, a melancholy gaze and look of acid disappointment stamped on his unshaven olive face."

The conversation steers back to his paintings. I ask him about his bond with the work, and why he felt the need to illustrate it.

"Through these, my drawings, He waves his hand at the three remaining unsold canvases I feel like I am sealing a bond with, and showing my appreciation to, a man who grew to be a friend. Re-reading the book in my dismal old age, he managed to spark some warmth and happiness within me, reliving my youth, rediscovering Sicily, and revisiting those stories belonging to a written tradition that taught my generation everything that they know. I was there at the demonstrations of the last decrepit Garibaldini; they were the same age as I am now, and Tancredi (a character in the book) when I was a child would have been eighty, ten years younger than my Grandfather. I even journeyed on horseback over the Sicilian dirt tracks before the arrival of the civilised road. I knew certain things for having lived them myself. These drawings, however, have floated in my mind for nigh on forty years, mixed with images from other readings, intertwined with plots of other books, real-life experiences; real people, paintings, music, smells, happiness, frights, and fears. So, just as the words of the book become figures on the page, those figures miraculously leapt off that page for me, becoming a sequence of images, much like a film."

Like Lampedusa, Caruso notes that he is a person very much alone. The majority of his waking days are dedicated to thought, the result being the eventual reduction of those thoughts to paint on a canvas. Much overworked in recent times, however, he complains that he is losing touch with the enjoyment necessary to complete his work. When asked why he doesn't take a break, he lets his body sink, for the first time looking his age, and reminds me:

"I am a man of nearly eighty years. Not one year of my life have I had the time to sit and relax, or muse at my surroundings without a job in mind. I wouldn't know what to do without my brush in hand."

It is true. Caruso started painting under the stern gaze of his father as early as age nine, copying works of the ancient masters, in particular those of Leonardo, Mantegna and Pisanello. He studied Classics at University until disrupted by the war, which in turn inspired his first personal collection: 'A Study Of Disaster'. In the immediate post war he journeyed through Milan, up to Prague, Munich, and Vienna, befriending Thomas Mann, completing his second collection entitled 'Deutschland uber alles', on the Nazi occupation, and carrying out numerous studies of the works of Klimt and Schiele.

Back in Palermo the local peasants fighting for the rights to unoccupied land became the subject of his third collection, during which he struck up an intimate friendship with Li Causi, the rebel leader. Over the next few years he campaigned actively for the cultural emancipation of Sicily, working to contain the rise of the Mafia, and halt political corruption. He took a job in the Palermitan psychiatric unit for a great part of the 50s, producing a damning study on the conditions of the wards, and use of medieval curing techniques, aiding the fight for political reforms in mental institutes.

The rest of the decade was spent travelling to Eastern Europe, and the Middle, and Far East, examining third world poverty, painting on the subject of famine, overpopulation, and threat of atomic war. He spent long stretches in Iran, also visiting India, Thailand, and Japan before they were contaminated by Western civilization. His travels then took him to Tehran to take Persian calligraphy course, after which he returned to Japan to study 18th and 19th Century paintings, favouring the great Hokusai. Then to America at the time of the Kennedy assassination, guest of Malcom X, Jack Levine, Tennesse Williams and Ben Shahn. There he completed his American collection published in Time, Life and Fortune amongst other magazines. On return to Italy, Rome became his new home, but he returned to India and was then invited to cover the Vietnam War by the North Vietnam government producing photographic documentation, while corresponding for Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore. Since then he has continued to travel but his focus has remained on Italy, particularly on Roman history, favouring painting the Roman ruins, and flower baskets of, in my view, inferior quality.

In all his travels Caruso has managed to meet the men who best represented modern times: from Mann to Albert Camus, Pablo Picasso to Chagall, General Giap to Pan Van Dong, Bressai to Ben Shahn, Stravinskj to Jean Paul Sartre, Max Ernst to Magritte. He remains a man unknown beyond the Italian borders, a man alone, a man who will bring his wealth of knowledge and tortured genius with him to his grave. Getting to know him properly has been a tremendous pleasure on my part, broadening my own knowledge, and raising interests I never knew I would have.