Mr Antonio Mattesi was born on 10 May 1892 in Albona, Istria (part of Austria-Hungary in 1912, now modern-day Labin, Istria, Croatia). 

Little is known about Mattesi’s early life and when he went to sea is not clear; in April 1912 he was serving as a waiter aboard the Carpathia when that ship rescued the survivors of the Titanic disaster.

Mattesi settled permanently in the US in 1920 and became a US citizen, finding employment as a cook; in 1931 he returned to Italy where he married Eleanora Rabbassi (b. 1912) of Pola. Eleanora eventually joined Mattesi in New York and the couple had a daughter in 1936 who survived only a short while. They made their home in Queens, New York.

Antonio Mattesi died in New York in March 1969.