The Leopard is a sweeping, six-part series adaptation of  Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's classic Il Gattopardo, which is widely considered to be one of the greatest Italian novels of all time. The book, set in his native Sicily during the unification of Italy in the late nineteenth century, was an international bestseller, and has been translated into over forty languages.

And while most American viewers may not be familiar with this author or his work, if the sprawling teaser trailer is anything to go by, a lot of us are going to want to get up to speed real quick. The story centers on nobleman Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, as he realizes his family's aristocratic way of life is threatened by revolution and the move towards Italian unification.