Il Gattopardo · di Sicilia

Terms of Service

Last updated: 26 July 2026

Welcome to Il Gattopardo. These Terms govern your purchase and use of our products and website. By placing an order you agree to them.

What you are buying. Il Gattopardo sells an honorific Sicilian title and a souvenir land dedication, delivered as a personalised certificate. It is a novelty gift and keepsake, and it is not a legal title of nobility, not a deed, and not a transfer of ownership of real property. Italy abolished the legal recognition of noble titles in 1948. You may style yourself "Don" or "Donna" for the pleasure of it; it carries no legal standing.

Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to place an order. By ordering you confirm that the information you provide (including any recipient's name and address) is accurate and that you are entitled to use it.

Orders & payment

Prices are shown in US dollars and processed securely by Stripe. We never see or store your full card details.
Your total may include optional add-ons: plot size, printing (+$30), and framing (+$59).
An order is confirmed once payment succeeds and you receive your certificate by email.
We may refuse or cancel an order (with a full refund) if it appears fraudulent or cannot be fulfilled.
If something is wrong with your order, please write to us before disputing the charge with your bank. Our refund policy is generous and we would rather simply fix it. We may decline future orders from an account that raises a chargeback without contacting us first.

Delivery

Digital certificates are emailed as a PDF within minutes of purchase. Printed and framed orders are produced and posted (US only); see our Shipping policy.

The souvenir dedication

Your certificate carries an honorific dedication to a corner of the Sicilian countryside. What you hold is the dedication itself, not any interest in a particular piece of ground, and we do not promise that it is tied to one fixed parcel. The land the dedication is associated with may change from time to time; a holder always has one. See our Legal Notice for the full position.

Refunds

See our Refund & Returns policy. In short: your title and certificate are refunded in full for 30 days for any reason; a printed or framed piece is refunded in full if you tell us before it is posted, and is not refundable once posted because it is personalised, except where it arrives damaged, incorrect, or not as described.

Intellectual property

The Il Gattopardo name, crest, certificate designs, and site content are our property and may not be reproduced or resold without permission. Your personalised certificate is for your own personal, non-commercial use.

Ideas and feedback you send us

We are glad to hear suggestions, and we read them. But please do not send us confidential material or anything you expect to be paid for. Anything you send us unsolicited, whether an idea, a design, a phrase, or a feature request, is sent on a non-confidential basis, and you grant us a free, perpetual, worldwide licence to use it in any way we like, with no obligation to credit or compensate you. If you want to keep an idea to yourself, keep it to yourself.

Acceptable use

Please do not misuse the site. In particular, do not attempt to break into it or interfere with it, scrape or copy it in bulk, use it to send unsolicited messages, order under a false identity or with a payment method that is not yours, or order a certificate naming a real person in a way intended to defame, harass, or impersonate them. We may cancel any order and refuse further service if you do. We may also refuse a name we consider offensive, defamatory, or likely to mislead, and we will refund the order in full if we do.

No warranties

THE SITE, THE CERTIFICATE, AND EVERYTHING ELSE WE PROVIDE ARE OFFERED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW WE DISCLAIM THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON INFRINGEMENT. We do not warrant that the site will be uninterrupted, secure, or free of errors, or that any defect will be corrected. Nothing in this section limits the specific promises we do make in our Refund & Returns policy, which we will honour, and nothing here takes away a right that the law where you live gives you and does not allow us to exclude.

Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS, THE SITE, OR ANY ORDER WILL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU ACTUALLY PAID US FOR THE ORDER GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST REVENUE, LOST DATA, LOST GOODWILL, OR LOST OPPORTUNITY, REGARDLESS OF THE LEGAL THEORY AND REGARDLESS OF WHETHER WE WERE TOLD SUCH DAMAGES WERE POSSIBLE.

Some states do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation of certain damages, so parts of the two sections above may not apply to you. In that case our liability is limited to the greatest extent the law allows. These limits are a fundamental part of the bargain between us, and they survive even if a limited remedy is found to have failed of its essential purpose.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Il Gattopardo and its owners, officers, employees, and suppliers from any claim, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the site, your violation of any law, or your infringement of anyone else's rights, including any claim brought by a person whose name you asked us to put on a certificate.

Dispute resolution, arbitration, and class action waiver

Please read this section carefully, because it affects your legal rights. It requires most disputes between us to be settled by individual binding arbitration rather than in court, and it gives up your right to a jury trial and your right to take part in a class action. You can opt out of it within 30 days, at no cost and with no effect on your order, and we say below exactly how.

Talk to us first. Almost everything is easier to fix by email. Before starting arbitration, please send a short written description of the problem and what you would like us to do about it to hello@terradelgattopardo.com, and give us 30 days to answer. We agree to do the same before bringing any claim against you.

Binding arbitration. If we cannot settle it that way, you and Il Gattopardo agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms, the site, an order, or our products, whether based in contract, statute, tort, or any other theory, will be resolved by final and binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court. One arbitrator will decide. The arbitration may be held by written submission, by telephone or video, or in person in the county where you live, whichever you prefer. The arbitrator may award any relief a court could award to you individually, and the arbitrator's decision may be entered as a judgment in any court with jurisdiction. The Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of this section.

Class action waiver. YOU AND Il Gattopardo EACH AGREE TO BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims and may not preside over any form of class or representative proceeding. If this waiver is found unenforceable as to a particular claim or a particular request for relief, then that claim or request alone will be severed and heard in court, and the rest of this section still applies to everything else.

Jury trial waiver. IF FOR ANY REASON A DISPUTE PROCEEDS IN COURT RATHER THAN IN ARBITRATION, YOU AND Il Gattopardo EACH WAIVE ANY RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JURY.

How to opt out. You are not required to agree to arbitration. To opt out, email hello@terradelgattopardo.com with the subject line "Arbitration opt out" within 30 days of your first order, telling us your name, the email address you ordered with, and your order number. That is all it takes. Opting out affects nothing else: your order, your certificate, and your refund rights are exactly the same, and we will not treat you differently for it. If you opt out, the rest of these Terms, including the governing law and venue below, still apply.

Small claims. Either of us may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court, if it qualifies there. That option is always open and this section does not close it.

Costs. The AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules govern who pays the filing and arbitrator fees, and under those rules most of the cost of a consumer arbitration falls on us. Each of us otherwise pays our own legal costs, unless the arbitrator decides otherwise or a statute provides otherwise.

Time limit. To the extent the law allows, any claim relating to these Terms or to an order must be brought within one year of when it arose, or it is permanently barred.

Changes. If we change this arbitration section, the change does not apply to any dispute we already knew about, and you may reject the change by emailing us within 30 days of the "last updated" date above.

Governing law and venue

These Terms and any dispute between us are governed by the law of the United States and of the state in which Il Gattopardo is established, and by the Federal Arbitration Act where it applies. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

Other terms

Third party links. Where we link to another site, such as our payment processor, that site has its own terms and privacy practices and we are not responsible for them.
Electronic communications. We do business by email. You agree that our emails, order confirmations, and this page satisfy any requirement that a communication be in writing.
Force majeure. We are not liable for a delay or failure caused by something outside our reasonable control, such as a postal disruption, a supplier failure, a payment or hosting outage, a natural event, or an act of government.
Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is modified to the least extent needed to make it enforceable, or removed, and the rest stays in force.
No waiver. If we do not enforce a provision on one occasion, we have not given up the right to enforce it later.
Assignment. You may not transfer these Terms to anyone else. We may transfer them to a successor if the business is sold or reorganised.
Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the policies they link to, are the whole agreement between us about the site and your order, and they replace anything said beforehand.

Changes & contact

We may update these Terms from time to time; the "last updated" date above reflects the current version. Material changes apply only to orders placed after they are posted. Questions? Email hello@terradelgattopardo.com.