Capo is one of the plainest words in Italian, used a hundred times a day, and it means head. Here is where it comes from, what Italians actually use it for, and why it is the second title of the family.
It begins with the Latin for head
The root is caput, the Latin word for head. Italian kept it almost whole, as capo, and English took it in by the side door: capital, captain and chief all come from the same word, and so does chef, the head of the kitchen. Wherever the word went, it kept the same idea. The head is the part the rest follows.
A word Italians use all day
The first day of the year is Capodanno, the head of the year. A masterpiece is a capolavoro, the head of the work. The chief town of a province or region is its capoluogo, and Palermo is the capoluogo of Sicily. The man who sends the trains out is the capostazione, and when a piece of music says da capo, the players go back to the head and start again. Italians also call whoever is running the job capo, and greet a friend with ciao, capo, half in fun and half in respect.
The island of three capes
A headland is a capo too, a head of land pushing into the sea, and Sicily is built on three of them. The Greeks called the island Trinacria, three cornered, after Capo Peloro by Messina, Capo Passero in the south east and Capo Lilibeo at Marsala in the west. The three legs of the Trinacria on the Sicilian flag are those three heads of land, still running round the face at the centre.
The capofamiglia
The word that matters most here is capofamiglia, the head of the household. For centuries the parish priests of Sicily kept registers called the stati delle anime, the state of souls, walking the parish house by house and writing down everyone under each roof, the capofamiglia first and then the rest of the household after. The town registers that followed were kept the same way. The capofamiglia was the one who answered for the house: who spoke for it to the priest and the town hall, who kept its accounts, who made sure there was bread on the table and a place at it for whoever needed one.
Further up the table
A big family has more than one head. There is the one at the very top of the table, the Don, and there are the ones who make the day run: the son who carves when his father's hands are tired, the brother who organises the feast, the cousin who knows where everyone is and gets them there. Every family has a few of them and could not do without any. That is the Capo: a seat further up the table, close enough to the head to be the one everyone asks next.
What it means on your certificate
A Capo certificate names the bearer Capo [name] della Famiglia, receives them into the honorific embrace of the family and is sealed with the family rose. It is a commemorative title, given for the pleasure and the story of it, and the Capo Pack includes the certificate printed on cotton paper and posted, for the one who already runs half the family and deserves something to hang.