Francesco Cuccia (original) (raw)

Francesco Cuccia (1876 – 1957), also known as Don Ciccio, was a member of the Sicilian Mafia and one-time mayor of Piana dei Greci (now Piana degli Albanesi). He is best known as the Mafia boss who triggered Benito Mussolini’s war on the Mafia, after humiliating the Duce while visiting Piana dei Greci in 1924. He was described by the writer Norman Lewis as a Mafia potentate with an inflamed sense of his own importance. The Sicilian writer Giuseppe Passarello called him "Cuccia il sanguinario" (Cuccia the bloodthirsty).