Ernesto Capocci Belmonte (Picinisco, 31 March 1798 – Naples, 6 January 1864) was an Italian mathematician, astronomer and politician.

In 1833 the king of Naples Ferdinand II appointed him director of the Observatory, but in 1850 he was ousted for having participated with his children in the uprisings of 1848 and for being a supporter of liberal and Risorgimento ideas.

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of Ernesto Capocci, the Capodimonte Observatory organized an exhibition[3] dedicated to the astronomer and published anastatic reprints of some of his popular texts.

In Paris he frequented François Arago and Alexander von Humboldt, prompted Macedonio Melloni to come and live in Naples to direct the Meteorological Observatory on Vesuvius.

His tomb, embellished with a bust[4] made by Vincenzo Gemito later exhibited in the Capodimonte Observatory Museum, was inaugurated in November 1900 with a speech given by Pasquale Del Pezzo and published in 2015.