He initially enlisted in the Royal Italian Navy, attending the Naval Academy of Livorno for some time, but moved to the Royal Italian Army after some time, attending the Nunziatella Military College in Naples and graduating in 1899 as lieutenant of the Corazzieri.

In 1906 he was promoted to captain, and on the following year he married Countess Cristina Agazzi, member of a noble Lombard family.

In 1923 he joined the National Fascist Party; in the following years he worked for the Ministry of War and served as military attaché in Berlin and Paris until 1930.

He also served as official in the colonial administrator in Italy's East African colonies for many years (in 1922 he signed a treaty with Arthur Wallace Skrine, British deputy governor of Kassala province, rectifying the border between Eritrea and Sudan), as well as consul in Ethiopia.

[5][6][7][8] Main colonial governors: Agenore Frangipani; Guglielmo Nasi; Enrico Cerulli; Pietro Gazzera; Luigi Frusci; Alessandro Pirzio Biroli