He was born in Ferrara, Italy, in 1798 and died murdered in his farm in Santos Lugares, San Martin district in the province of Buenos Aires on October 12, 1856. He belonged to a family of painters from Bologna and Ferrara, famous since the 15th century. He arrived in Buenos Aires in 1829 and lived with the Bolognese painter Alessandro Zucchelli. He began his work as a portraitist, being the favorite of the Buenos Aires society of that time, he was also a miniaturist painter on ivory.

In 1846, he opened a daguerreotype portrait workshop. He had many disciples, among them Gaspar Palacio and Martín Boneo. Together with Augusto Favier, he set up a workshop where he painted and taught art. He was an artist of remarkable expressive force. He knew how to reach the intimacy of the model, he was little concerned about the work as a whole. He went to the character by the particularity of the form. His portraits were of just modeling, fine drawing, low intonation, sober, intimate and with a hint of melancholy. He painted children of graceful and lively figure, and maternal portraits of double psychological rhythm and happy pictorial realization in both faces. His art has achieved maximum acceptance in his time, he painted the best of Buenos Aires life.