Jean-Baptiste Ventura

Jean-Baptiste (Giovanni Battista) Ventura, born Rubino ben Torah (25 May 1794 – 3 April 1858), was an Italian soldier, mercenary in India and early archaeologist of the Punjab region of the Sikh Empire.

Ventura was born in Finale Emilia in the Duchy of Modena to Jewish parents and received a conventional Jewish education. At the age of seventeen Ventura enrolled as a volunteer in the militia of the Kingdom of Italy and later served with Napoleon's imperial army where he reached the rank of colonel of infantry. After the Waterloo and the final downfall of Napoleon he returned to his home; but in 1817, yet known by the local authorities for his revolutionaries and Napoleonic sympathies owing to a dispute between him and a local member of the reactionary Ducal police, he was obliged to leave the country.

He went first to Trieste, and then to Constantinople, where he was for a time a ship-broker.

Learning that Persia was seeking the services of European soldiers, he obtained an officer's commission, and helped to instruct the forces of the shah in European methods of warfare. He soon attained the rank of colonel. On the death of the shah in 1822, Ventura offered his services to his successor, 'Abbas Mirza. In the latter's service, however, were a number of English officers who were decidedly hostile to the French, with whom they classed Ventura on account of his having fought under Napoleon; and through their intrigues Ventura was dismissed.

He travelled east, ending in Lahore with Jean-François Allard in 1822. They took service with the Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab, and soon got to prove their worth.

In March the following year, both Allard and Ventura held command in the Battle of Nowshera where a combined Afghan force was defeated, resulting in Punjab's capture of Peshawar.

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