The first thing I found intriguing, about Commander Attilio Gatti, was the fact that his Wikipedia entry quoted a birth date (1896) but not a date of death.

Who knows, I thought – maybe during his African expeditions, he discovered some strange ritual, same weird fountain of youth, maybe the eternal flame of Ayesha, and he’s still alive somewhere, approaching his 120th birthday.

Attilio Gatti was very active between the 1930s and the 1940s, but seems to have faded from the public’s memory since the 1970s, when his many popular books went out of print and became highly priced collectors’ items¹. Continue reading →