Captain Vincenzo "Vinny" Santorini (1876 - 1950) was a Italian mercenary, demolition expert and a captain in the Italian Army, Santorini was the nephew of Rose Santorini who was a member of the Italian Brotherhood. In 1914, Santorini took part in an exploration expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis which was sponsored by an American millionaire and industrialist, named Preston B. Whitmore who hired him as a mercenary and demolition expert. It's unknown if the expedition did find Atlantis.
Military Career (1895 - 1937)
In 1895 when his was 19, Vinny joined the Italian Army as an demolition expert and fought in the Italo-Ethiopian War (1895 - 1896) and The Italo-Turkish War (1911 - 1912). After taking part in Mr. Withmore's expedition in 1914, Santorini reinstated back in to the Army and in 1934, Santorini was promoted to the rank of Captain. The last armed conflict that he took part in was the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935 - 1937) but however while serving in Africa, Santorini witnessed the atrocities and war crimes committed by the Italian Army upon the native Africans in Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Vinny was horrified and greatly upset, so in an act defiance and insubordination, Vinny refused to execut a group of local Ethiopian tribesmen and for this brave act, his superiors called him a "coward" and was arrested, striped of his rank, discharged and sent back to Italy to stand trial for "treson". Back in Italy, Vinny was being held in the San Vittore Prison in Milan, when a strange man came to visit Santorini, to his surprise the man came to thank him for saving his family's life who were the unnarmed Ethiopian civilians that he refused to execut and offered to bali him out. The man's name is Giovanni Askari, who is the grandson to the Ethiopian master assassin, Khalon Zivai.