Prince of Lampedusa

Minor title in the Sicilian nobility

Principality of Lampedusa

Creation date	13 August 1667
Created by	Charles II of Sicily
Peerage	Peerage of Sicily
First holder	Giulio Tomasi, 2nd Duke of Palma
Last holder	Pietro Tomasi, 12th Prince of Lampedusa
Subsidiary titles	Duke of Palma Baron of Montechiaro Baron of Torretta Grandee of Spain, First Class
Seat(s)	Palazzo Lampedusa alla Marina
Former seat(s)	Palazzo Lampedusa
Motto	spes mea in deo est ("My hope lies in God")

Prince of Lampedusa was a title in the Peerage of Siciliy. It was created in 1667 for the aristocrat Giulio Tomasi, 2nd Duke of Palma.^[1]

The principality comprehended the islands of Lampedusa and Linosa; in the 1840s, the Tomasi family sold the islands to the State.

The Palazzo Lampedusa in Palermo was badly damaged during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. The famous Italian novelist Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was the last to hold officially the title of prince before the end of the Kingdom of Italy. About a decade later, shortly before he died, he wrote The Leopard, a novel based in part on the life of his great-grandfather, Don Giulio. During the same period in which he was writing The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi adopted his own distant cousin Gioacchino Lanza, thereafter known as Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, but the latter did not use the extinct noble title.