“Everything must change for everything to remain the same,” Tancredi, Prince Fabrizio Salina’s beloved nephew, says in a now-famous line from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel “The Leopard.” The same philosophy applies to the look and feel of the Sicily-set classic’s Netflix miniseries adaptation, which released globally Wednesday and marks the streamer’s most ambitious Italian original to date.

“The Leopard” chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the 19th-century unification of Italy, known as the Risorgimento. When tasked with telling the story in 2025, the lavish show’s production and costume teams faced a monumental challenge in envisioning a modern take on the sensual Sicilian saga. There would also be inevitable comparisons to “The Leopard’s” first adaptation — Luchino Visconti’s 1963 cinema classic starring Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon and Burt Lancaster, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival.

Netflix’s six-episode epic...