He believed that a modern postwar Italian republic should be run on lay rather than religious principles, and his news outlets campaigned for reform of the laws governing divorce and abortion.
[2] In 1976, Caracciolo and Eugenio Scalfari, with backing from the publisher Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, set up the daily newspaper La Repubblica.
[2] In 1984, shortly before it began to outsell the prestigious Corriere della Sera, Caracciolo took his publishing activities to the Italian stock exchange.
After much in-fighting and litigation, the news publications were hived off into the Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso controlled by the CIR Group of entrepreneur Carlo De Benedetti,[2] of which Caracciolo remained honorary president until 2006.
In 1991, he and his wife Violante Visconti purchased the Torrecchia Vecchia estate, and subsequently developed its villa with architect Gae Aulenti, around which they created a notable, English-style garden to designs by Dan Pearson and others.
According to his biographer and former co-editor of L'Espresso, Nello Ajello: "He set an example for free and independent editorial content that initially seemed marginal and exclusive and instead became a major force in Italian newspaper publishing.