A newly published genealogical study has revealed that Lionel Messi has direct ancestral ties to Brazil, with one of his great-grandfathers born in the state of Sao Paulo before the family ultimately settled in Argentina.
Italian researcher Fiorenzo Santini, a specialist in family lineage, spent several years reconstructing the Argentina captain’s family tree after becoming intrigued by the origins of the surname “Messi” during the forward’s early years at Barcelona, Brazilian network Globo has reported.
Santini’s work shows that on the paternal side, Messi’s great-great-grandfather, Angelo Messi, left the Italian town of Recanati for Rosario in Argentina in 1893, travelling with his wife to South America.
The maternal side of the family, however, followed a more complex route which included an extended stay in Brazil and a change of name that left the footballer’s true roots obscured for more than a century.
Brazilian detour and name change
According to the study, Messi’s maternal great-great-grandfather, Ranieri Cocchietti, was born in the area of San Severino Marche in Italy. He later emigrated with his wife, Rosa Recchizza, to Brazil aboard the ship Washington, arriving at the port of Santos on 20 September 1899.
Historical documents cited by Santini indicate that, during this journey and the family’s early period in Brazil, both Ranieri’s first name and surname were altered because of difficulties officials had in recording foreign names at the time. Ranieri became “Ramiro Conccettini”, a form the researcher says was consistent with common adaptations imposed on many immigrants in that era.
Once in Brazil, the family settled in the state of Sao Paulo. Messi’s ancestor worked on a farm in the Rincao area before the household moved to the city of Ribeirao Preto. It was there that two of the couple’s children were born, including Arderigo in 1904.
Around a year after Arderigo’s birth, the family left Brazil and migrated again, this time to Argentina. They established themselves in the vicinity of Rosario, the city that would later become synonymous with Messi’s own rise as a footballer.
From Marche to Rosario – and on to Messi
The study traces how this move to Argentina marked the start of a new chapter for the family. In the Rosario region, Antonio Cuccittini – Messi’s maternal grandfather – was born, followed later by his daughter, Celia Maria Cuccittini, who would become Messi’s mother.
Lionel Andres Messi Cuccittini was then born on 24 June 1987 in Rosario, connecting the modern-day World Cup winner to a family journey that had begun decades earlier in central Italy and passed through the coffee farms of Sao Paulo.
Santini explained that his research, carried out between 2019 and 2022, was prompted by the apparent absence of the surname “Cuccittini” from Italian records. That gap led him to investigate further through archival documents and conversations with relatives on Messi’s mother’s side, eventually uncovering that the name and surname had been modified during the family’s period in Brazil.
The findings helped clarify the lineage of Messi’s maternal family and, according to Santini, played a role in Messi being awarded honorary citizenship of the Italian town of San Severino Marche in 2022, in recognition of his ancestral links to the region.
No known relatives remain in Brazil
The study notes that there are no records indicating that any of Messi’s relatives remained in Ribeirao Preto after the family departed Brazil for Argentina in 1905. The Brazilian chapter of the family story appears to have ended with that move to Rosario.
Even so, Santini highlights that a symbolic connection between the Argentina captain and the Brazilian city survives. Ribeirao Preto still has a street named “Martinico Prado”, in honour of the landowner who employed Messi’s ancestors on his farm in Sao Paulo state before their final migration to Argentina.
That brief stay in Brazil, once obscured by altered documents and shifting surnames, now forms a little-known but firmly documented part of the background to one of football’s greatest players.
