Francesco "Ciccio" Cappuccio (c. 1842 – 5 December 1892), also known as 'O Signorino for his elegant manners, was a legendary guappo and the capintesta (head-in-chief) of the Camorra, a Mafia-type organisation in Naples in Italy, in the last half of the 19th century.

[1][2] Ciccio Cappuccio was raised in a known criminal family in the infamous Imbrecciata street in the Vicaria neighbourhood in Naples, a zone full of violence, prostitution and camorristi.

When the forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi advanced towards Naples in June 1860 in an effort to unify Italy, political unrest increased in the city.

[8][9] These ringleaders elected a capintesta (head-in-chief), the general head of the Neapolitan Camorra, which for a long period corresponded to the caposocietà of the Vicaria district to the east of the city, between the prisons and the courts.

[8] In 1869, Ciccio Cappuccio was elected as the capintesta of the Camorra by the twelve district heads (capintriti), succeeding Salvatore De Crescenzo after a short interregnum.

[12][13] The criminal control of the horse 'supply chain' was a fundamental segment of camorristic activity, in which most ringleaders, including Cappuccio, operated first and foremost.

Sangiorgi asked Cappuccio to recover a gold watch studded with gems stolen from Baroness Nicotera-Ricco, wife of the then Minister of the Interior, Giovanni Nicotera.

A few years later, Cappuccio's intercession proved necessary to also recover the gold snuff box stolen from Michele Pironti, Attorney General and future Minister of Justice.

In April 1874 he staged a kind of coup d’etat in the Beautiful Reformed Society, deposing many district bosses and replacing them with others he could trust.

On 23 April 1874, a masked hitman entered Cappuccio’s shop on Piazza San Ferdinando and shot at him four times; one bullet grating his face.

From that moment he became a sort of absolute monarch of the Beautiful Reformed Society, abolishing the annual meetings of the district heads to elect the head-in-chief.

[21][22] Three days after his death, Ferdinando Russo, a popular poet of the period, published a poem "Canzone 'e Ciccio Cappuccio" in Il Mattino, immortalising the legendary Camorra chief.

[23][24] Days after his death, 'relics' began to circulate: small bottles filled with his blood, pieces of bone, strips of skin, probably taken by funeral workers, to do business on one of the Camorra bosses most celebrated by followers.

[25] Other sources mention that after the death of Cappuccio, Giuseppe Chirico, 'o Granatiere (The Grenadier), from the Porta San Gennaro neighbourhood was elected.

Acts of other camorristi were attributed to him, including that of having quelled the August 1893 popular revolt in Naples incited by a strike of horse-cab drivers notoriously linked to the Camorra, against the extension of tramways, which, in fact, happened eight months after the death of Cappuccio.