Santino became a vampire in the mid-1300s — a plague took all in a town in which he'd lived and a vampire found him, foraging through the bloated corpses of his brothers and sisters.

Santino was the leader of a satanic coven in Rome. He helped to create the Great Laws and lead the attack on Marius because he (Marius) lived among mortals. The attack failed, but the coven captured Armand, who was Marius' young companion at the time.