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Teseo Tesei (3 January 1909 – 26 July 1941) was an Italian naval officer, who invented the human torpedo (called Maiale, Italian for "pig") used by the Regia Marina during World War II.
In 1929, Tesei had the idea for the manned torpedo, from the Italian device used to sink the Austrian battleship SMS Viribus Unitis during World War I. In 1931 he entered the Naval Academy of Livorno, where he showed his inventive capabilities. Together with Elios Toschi, he designed a human torpedo called Siluro a lenta corsa (SLC) ("Slow-Run Torpedo"), later nicknamed the Maiale, Italian for "pig", because it proved to be difficult to steer. The SLC was extensively used in World War II by the Italian Navy and was used in the sinking of two British battleships in Alexandria. The British later developed their own manned torpedo model, called "Chariot", from one of his captured "Maiali". In 1936, with Angelo Belloni he designed the high-performance Rebreather that was used by the Italian underwater raiders during their WWII operations, and that heavily influenced the following German and British wartime rebreathers design. In 1938 he was one of the officers who organized the Decima Flottiglia MAS underwater raiders unit of the Italian Navy. On 21 August 1940, Tesei was the only survivor when the Italian submarine Iride was sunk.
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