Fiorenzo Santini, an Italian historian, spent three years reconstructing Lionel Messi’s maternal family tree. What he found was something no one expected: the surname Cuccittini did not exist in any Italian record. 🧐
The trail led him to Brazil. In 1899, the Coccettini family arrived at the port of Santos fleeing Italy, and in 1904, in Ribeirão Preto, Arderigo Coccettini was born: Messi’s maternal great-grandfather. It was not until 1905 that the family crossed over to Rosario, Argentina, where his grandfather Antonio and his mother, Celia María, were born.
The same surname that underwent a phonetic alteration upon arriving in South America ended up uncovering a family chapter that not even Jorge Messi fully knew about when Santini first contacted him in 2015. 🇦🇷⚽