With 24 victories during his career, he is one of the principal Italian air aces of World War I, behind only Count Francesco Baracca and Tenente Silvio Scaroni.

Piccio rose to the rank of Lieutenant General and in later years, became a Roman senator under the Fascists before and during World War II.

At that time, Italy and Belgium had an agreement to allow for exchange duty between their militaries; Piccio's aim was service in the Belgian Congo.

This war was notable for the first use of aircraft in battle, although the pioneer events of aerial reconnaissance and bombing occurred just before Piccio's arrival.

During this service, while commanding a machine gun section, he was decorated with the Bronze Medal for Military Valor during February 1912.

On 31 December 1914, as Europe settled into the bitter trench warfare of World War I, Piccio was knighted in the Order of the Crown of Italy.

Somehow, the flight line chauffeur was uncharacteristically late with the French pilots that day, and Piccio departed before their arrival.

The subsequent victory won Piccio a silver medal for Military Valor for the hazardous combat duty of shooting a German observation balloon down in flames.

[3] He continued to score, and on 2 August 1917, he caught Austro-Hungarian pilot Frank Linke-Crawford flying a two-seater without a rear gunner and shot him down for victory number eight.

[3] It was during this stretch of time he transferred from the Nieuport he had been flying, to a Spad adorned with a black flag painted on the fuselage.

They gained immediate air supremacy over the Luftfahrtruppen; the Austro-Hungarians called this dismal time the "Black Weeks" for good reason.

[3] On November 4, the day of the Austro-Hungarian armistice, Piccio returned, having slipped out of the collapsing Empire in an enemy overcoat.

[3] In 1918, even as the war ended, one rather dramatic report says Piccio was courting the young daughter of a deceased Louisiana millionaire.

[citation needed] The teenager's mother objected to the match because of her daughter's age, but Piccio followed them to the United States and they were married in New York.

[citation needed] It was a stormy relationship that descended into a welter of cultural misunderstandings and child custody issues.

While living in Italy, Loranda Piccio attempted to flee her husband during or before August 1924, taking her child with her, only to be thwarted.

Finzi instituted new personnel and promotion policies for the new air force's officers, and Piccio carried them out.

[9] Piccio was the senior officer serving as part of the establishment of the new air force;[9] thus, he was appointed the Commandant General of the Regia Aeronautica from October 23, 1923[3] through 17 April 1925.

News of his playing the stock market and living luxuriously had led to cries of treason, which made Balbo's task easier.

[citation needed] Piccio was named an honorary aide de camp of the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III as of 1 March 1923.

[2] In 1940, while living in Geneva, Piccio met his former enemy and long-time friend, Belgian ace Willy Coppens.

Piccio showed him a cigarette case salvaged from the wreckage of an Austro-Hungarian plane, and remarked, "From 1915 to 1918 Italy was at war to eliminate the spiked helmets and now Mussolini has brought them back to us!"

[3] Post World War II, he seems to have temporarily forfeited the wealth he had made as a fascist; there is a decree of forfeiture dated 29 November 1945.