Nathaniel Hawthorne's romance concerns a group of American expatriates in mid-nineteenth century Italy, and their tragic encounter with the faun-like Italian count, Donatello. It is both a murder story and a parable of the Fall of Man, dominated by the fragility and durability of human life and art.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's romance concerns a group of American expatriates in mid-nineteenth century Italy, and their tragic encounter with the faun-like Italian count, Donatello. It is both a murder story and a parable of the Fall of Man, dominated by the fragility and durability of human life and art.