Giovanni (Treasure Trail)

Giovanni was the leader of a cell of Italian partisans based in the village of Borosini in northern Italy during World War II.

Biography
Giovanni's partisans did what they could to resist the German forces occupying the north of Italy, but this amounted to very little as the partisans were fearful of German retaliation putting villagers at risk. In practice, the Nazis were able to loot and plunder as they pleased.

In the summer of 1944, when the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith arrived in Borosini, Giovanni accused them of being German spies. Unable to distinguish German language from English, he believed a toffee wrapper found on the Doctor incriminated him. However, when a German column approached the village, Giovanni spared the travellers to avoid reprisals.

Though Giovanni remained highly suspicious, the Doctor soon won the trust of Father Antonio, the village priest, after which Giovanni gradually warmed to the strangers. They co-operated further and further over the coming days as they made plans to recover several paintings and art pieces stolen from Borosini by Hermann Goering's Special Service Division. This culminated in Operation Stop Thief, in which Giovanni led the attack of the train transporting the treasures back to Berlin.

The paintings recovered, the Doctor took them away from the war in the TARDIS and safely returned them to Antonio and Giovanni in April 1948. The pair were interviewed about the recovery of the treasures but kept much of the details about the Doctor a secret. Privately, Giovanni considered the Doctor and Sarah's intervention a miracle, and continued to wonder who they really were. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)