Francesco Cuccia

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 him 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).

Mafia boss in Piana dei Greci Born in Rome to wealthy parents of Arbëreshë descent, Ciccio was a distant cousin to prominent financier Enrico Cuccia. Cuccia was one of the Mafia bosses of Piana dei Greci, a town known for its strong peasant movement demanding land reform. He sided with the landowners against the socialist-inspired movement headed by Nicola Barbato, one of the leaders of the Fasci Siciliani in 1892–1893. Since those days, the town was known as Piana la rossa (Red Piana). In the late nineteenth, early twentieth century, the struggle for the rights and freedoms of peasants in Sicily was also a struggle against the Mafia.

In June 1914, the socialists won the municipal elections with a landslide. During the election campaign, the socialist militants Mariano Barbato (a cousin of Nicola Barbato) and Giorgio Pecoraro had been killed.

Fighting the socialists After World War I, the struggle of the landless peasants intensified. Sicilian peasants returning from the front found a disastrous economic situation. During their military service, their fields had been abandoned and overgrown, and inflation reduced them to starvation. The only people, who had become rich by taking advantage of this situation, were the landowners and their leaseholders such as Cuccia. Social tension began to rise across the country, known as the Biennio Rosso (Red Biennium – 1919–1920).

In Piana dei Greci the socialists won the elections of October 1920, gaining all seats in the municipal council and electing the mayor. During the parliamentary elections of May 1921 socialist candidates could not campaign or go to the polls due to serious intimidation by the Mafia. Under pressure from the Mafia and the prefect and the police, the Socialist Party left the municipal council and even had to close the local section. The town was then placed under a commissioner until the new elections on April 9, 1922, when the Liberal Democrats list led by Francesco Cuccia won by a landslide. The list was "composed of three-fifths of people belonging to the mafia." The Arbëreshë poet Giuseppe Schirò publicly defended the Mafia administration of Cuccia several times, considering it "the most suitable for the peaceful development of the best qualities of its people," able to open "a new period in our history." In a speech from the balcony of City Hall, he praised Cuccia to have had the merit and the courage "to have done away with that red flag of socialism from our community."

Triggering Mussolini's war on the Mafia

Two years later, in May 1924, the Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, then prime minister, visited Sicily and also passed through Piana dei Greci where he was received by the mayor Don Ciccio. At some point Cuccia expressed surprise at Mussolini's police escort and whispered in his ear: "You are with me, you are under my protection. What do you need all these cops for?" To Cuccia the large police escort indicated a lack of respect. When Mussolini declined to release the substantial police force, Cuccia had the central town square emptied when Il Duce made his speech. Mussolini found himself addressing a group of some 20 village idiots, beggars, bootblacks and lottery ticket sellers picked out as an audience by Don Ciccio. He felt humiliated and outraged.

Cuccia's careless remark and subsequent insult has passed into history as the catalyst for Mussolini's war on the Mafia. When Mussolini firmly established his power in January 1925, he appointed Cesare Mori as the Prefect of Palermo, with the order to eradicate the Mafia at any price.

In 1957, at the age of 81, Ciccio Cuccia died at his home in Palermo.