[1] His father, who was made senator in 1934, had pro-Fascist sentiments and had access to highest political circles of Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime.

Luigi Jr., however, frequently associated with the younger generation of fascists around Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Mussolini's son-in-law.

On 11 December 1937, he was aboard the USS Panay on the Yangtze Patrol in Nanking at the prompting of George Atcheson, a U.S. Embassy official.

[3] According to Alley, writing in his memoir I Witness, Atcheson proclaimed that aboard the gunboat the group would be "as safe as you would be on good old American soil."

This episode of the incident was captured on Alley's and Mayell's cameras and in a 1937 Wide World Photos shot titled "Consoling dying Panay victim".

[1] He was the father of five children, and lived on a small farm near Rome, where he produced his own olive oil, wine, vegetables, and fruit.