Mastro-don Gesualdo continued to work with his laborers, fulfilling contracts to build walls, roads, and bridges.

Mastro-don Gesualdo, realistic novel of Sicilian life by Giovanni Verga, published in Italian in 1889. But Gesualdo falls foul of the rigid class structure of mid-19th century Sicily.
With Enrico Maria Salerno, Grazia Di Marzà, Lidia Alfonsi, Franco Sineri.

On the face of things, Mastro Don Gesualdo is a success.

His title Mastro Don, 'Worker Gentleman', is ironic in itself. Born a peasant but a man' with an eye for everything going', he becomes one of the richest men in Sicily, marrying an aristocrat with his daughter destined, in time, to wed a duke.