Capo dei capi
phrase used to indicate extremely powerful Mafia boss
Capo dei capi (Italian: [ˈkaːpo dei ˈkaːpi]; "boss of [the] bosses"), capo di tutti i capi (Italian: [ˈkaːpo di ˈtutti i ˈkaːpi]; "boss of all bosses") or Godfather (Italian: padrino) are terms used mainly by the media, the public, fiction writers and the law enforcement community to indicate a supremely powerful crime boss in the Sicilian or American Mafia who holds great influence over the whole organization. The term was introduced to the U.S. public by the Kefauver Commission in 1950.
Sicilian Mafia
In the Sicilian Mafia, the position does not exist. For instance, the old-style Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini was often portrayed in the media as the "boss of bosses" – although such a position does not exist according to later Mafia pentiti, such as Tommaso Buscetta. They also denied Vizzini ever was the ruling boss of the Mafia in Sicily. According to Mafia historian Salvatore Lupo "the emphasis of the media on the definition of 'capo dei capi' is without any foundation".
Nevertheless, the title has frequently been given to powerful Mafia bosses to this day. During the 1980s and 1990s the bosses of the Corleonesi, Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, were bestowed with the title by the media.
In April 2006, the Italian government arrested Bernardo Provenzano in a small farmhouse near the town of Corleone. His successor is reported to be either Matteo Messina Denaro or Salvatore Lo Piccolo.
“Capo dei capi” enters the record as phrase used to indicate extremely powerful Mafia boss. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Capo, capi and phrase can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1034774. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1950 and 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Capo dei capi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.