Torquato Conti (1591–1636) was an Italian military commander who served as a General-Field Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.

[1] In 1616, Conti commanded a company of infantry against Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (who was supported by the Kingdom of France) in an unsuccessful attempt to maintain the Spanish occupation of Alba.

Conti was promoted to lieutenant colonel and Regimental Chief in the interceding years before commanding troops loyal to Charles Bonaventure de Longueval, Count of Bucquoy first at the Siege of Pilsen and then at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620.

He was installed as Field Marshal and commander of garrisoned troops in Pomerania after the Capitulation of Franzburg; specifically the strategic Oder River crossing towns of Gartz and Greifenhagen.

[1] The beginning of the Swedish intervention (1630–1635) in the Thirty Years' War saw King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and his troops enter the Holy Roman Empire via the Duchy of Pomerania.

Forced to retreat from the advancing Swedish army of King Gustavus Adolphus, Conti ordered his troops to burn houses, destroy villages and generally cause as much harm to property and people as possible, a military strategy known as scorched earth.

On pretence of cutting off the resources of the Swedes, the whole country was laid waste and plundered; and often, when the Imperialists were unable any longer to maintain a place, it was laid in ashes, in order to leave the enemy nothing but ruins.And by another:[1] For his lawless depredations and exactions, which had earned for him the name of The Devil among the common people of the North of Germany, as well as in Jutland and Holstein.When one village complained of the treatment they had received, Conti ordered them to be stripped naked so that they would "have sure grounds for complaints".

In September Conti's commanding officer, von Wallenstein, was dismissed by the Emperor whose advisers were concerned he was planning a coup to take control of the Holy Roman Empire.

Suffering from illness (likely cancer) and disheartened by the King's rebuke, Conti resigned his post in favour of Colonel Hannß Casimir von Schaumberg.