Trained at the Ligustica Academy of Fine Arts in Genoa, he was a cultured painter who reformed the style without ever abandoning the lines of the Genoese painting tradition of which he was a profound connoisseur, thus creating a singular synthesis between Rococo and the new classical taste.
With the fall of the Republic he also became an expert and mediator for the purchase and sale of works in the collections of the city aristocracy.

He shared with his brother Andrea, architect and leading figure in the transition from Baroque to Neoclassicism, the transition period of the early nineteenth century which, beyond the artistic taste, saw the definitive change in the social and political order of the city.