 American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1860 Gothic novel, "The Marble Faun", centers around Donatello, a man who is believed to be a descendant of Praxiteles’ "Marble Faun" due to his uncanny resemblance to the sculpture.The novel was inspired by Hawthorne’s visit to the Palazzo Nuovo of the Capitoline Museum in Rome after moving his family to Italy in 1858.This novel was later adapted into a 1996 opera, with music by Ellen Bender and a liberetto by Jessica Treadway.