Nathaniel Hawthorne described Giovanni as having a 'remarkable beauty of person'. His looks were rather more Grecian than Italian, with fair features and a glistening of gold sprinkled through his hair... But the stories he wrote about him were as dark and menacing as his looks were light and open - and the terrible and tortuous fate which was waiting for him, was as exquisitely agonising as any Dante would find for his lost soul in the seven rings of hell...