How does Giovanni fit our expectations for American romantic hero

His obsessive passion for beauty and longing are evident. At the beginning of the story, Giovanni has moved from his home in southern Italy into lodgings in Padua in the north of Italy.

From the beginning, it is obvious he is an impressionable youth. The strange beauty of Rappaccini's garden below his bedroom window astonishes him. At the same time, he appreciates the way Rappacccini carefully and intelligently deals with his plants.

His life changes when he sees Beatrice. She takes him aback with her beauty and charm. Unlike her father, Giovanni notices that, rather treating the plants with care, she treats them like friends, going right up to them and smelling their scent. Baglioni, a professor at his university, and a friend of his father, the only connection he has with home, tries to warn Giovanni that Rappaccini grows poisonous plants - Giovanni himself could become part of his experiment. Giovanni, however, has fallen in love.