The Princes of Lampedusa – who even after the gift of their title were sensible enough to stay in their palaces on Sicily – encouraged the island’s repopulation. Today, if the island’s name rings any bells apart from for its recent miseries it is for one holder of this title in particular. The author of The Leopard was the last of the line of Princes of that name. But there is nothing of him or his world on the island that shares his name. The decaying grandeur of his Sicilian Baroque feels as many miles away as it is from this dusty outcrop of plain, low-built houses. These days the island is inhabited by about five thousand people, mainly centred around the sole port. There is one main street of shops – the Via Roma – which leads to the harbour, and the island’s youth hang around here in packs or speed about the town’s few streets, two to a scooter. Old women group together on benches around the town square in front of the church, the men constantly greeting each other as though they haven’t met for years. It is the sort of place from which any ambitious young Italian would do practically anything to escape. Yet every day thousands of people risk their lives trying to get here.

Of course, people have fled North Africa for years. And as the island’s graveyard attests, it is not only in the last few years that the journey has proved deadly. Buried alongside the locals in the cemetery are some of those who set out for Lampedusa and whose journey ended in the sea. ‘Migrante non identificato. Qui riposa’, says one of the grave-markers put down by the local government: ‘29 Settembre 2000’. During the 2000s boatloads of migrants regularly arrived on Lampedusa, bringing people not only from North and sub-Saharan Africa, but from the Middle and Far East. People-smugglers charged high rates for the journey by boat, but desperate individuals paid their prices for the short crossing. With a journey time of less than a day, however badly propelled the boat, it became known as one of the best routes to a new life. Once onto Lampedusa you are into Italy, and once into Italy you are into Europe.

It is a strange first glimpse to get of the continent. Those whose boats come up on the shoreline see little to distinguish their point of arrival from the place they have just left. Those who sail into the south-facing harbour find a small port, lined with a few quiet shops and cafes meant to cater for the Italian tourists who used to come here for their holidays. Fishing remains the island’s main business, and on a tall column over the harbour stands a statue of the Madonna and Child, watching over the ships as they go in and out of the port.