Pier Capponi was one of four s built for the (Royal Italian Navy) during the 1920s.
The Mameli class was one of the 's first classes of submarines to be built after the First World War. They displaced surfaced and submerged. The submarines were long, had a beam of and a draft of . They had an operational diving depth of . Their crew numbered 49 officers and enlisted men.
For surface running, the boats were powered by two diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by a electric motor. They could reach on the surface and underwater. On the surface, the Mameli class had a range of at ; submerged, they had a range of at .
The boats were armed with six torpedo tubes, four in the bow and two in the stern for which they carried a total of 10 torpedoes. They were also armed with a single deck gun forward of the conning tower for combat on the surface. Their anti-aircraft armament consisted of two single machine guns.
Pier Capponi was laid down by Cantieri navali Tosi di Taranto at their Taranto shipyard on 27 August 1925, launched on 19 June 1927, and completed in 1929. She was commissioned on 19 January 1929. During World War II, the Royal Navy submarine torpedoed and sank her in the Tyrrhenian Sea south of Stromboli at on 31 March 1941.