Cappello won the 2010 Viareggio-Rèpaci prize for poetry with his collection Mandate a dire all'imperatore.
English translations of his work have appeared in Poetry, PN Review, AGNI, Asymptote, Narrative Magazine, and several other journals, and were awarded the 2015 Raiziss and de Palchi Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.
As a result, the family was relocated to a prefab community provided by Austria, where Cappello remained for most of his life.
At age sixteen he suffered a tragic motorbike crash, which saw him using a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
In 2014 Cappello was named a beneficiary of the Legge Bacchelli—a guarantee of lifetime financial support from the Italian government for artists of merit.