Many years ago, a young man named Giovanni Guasconti left his home in Naples to study in northern Italy. He took a room in an old house next to a magnificent garden filled with strange flowers and other plants. The garden belonged to a doctor, Giacomo Rappaccini. He lived with his daughter, Beatrice, in a small brown house in the garden. From a window of his room, Giovanni had seen that Rappaccini’s daughter was very beautiful. But everyone in Padua was afraid of her father. Pietro Baglioni, a professor at the university, warned Giovanni about the mysterious Doctor Rappaccini. «He is a great scientist,» Professor Baglioni told the young man. «But he is also dangerous. Rappaccini cares more about science than he does about people. He has created many terrible poisons from the plants in his garden.»