Born to an ancient Genoese family connected with the Grimaldi, Cebà attended the University of Padua, where he studied under Sperone Speroni, and Giason Denores.

[1] Cebà had an extremely close relationship, by correspondence only, with the jewish poet and writer Sara Copia Sullam, whom he admired but whom he never actually met.

The love-poetry of a Petrarchan stamp which it contained - celebrating a Genoese lady, Aurelia Spinola - gave way in a second volume of Rime (Rome, 1611) to religious and moral themes.

The Genoese Doge of the time, Giacomo Lomellini, had his palace frescoed by Domenico Fiasella with a cycle of paintings inspired by Cebà's poem.

[12] In 1621 appeared the Esercitii Accademici, and the dialogue Il Gonzaga over del Poema Heroico, in which he tried to prove that Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso had adhered to the classical unities in their epics.

A second epic poem, Il Furio Camillo, a second tragedy, Alcippo Spartano, and two volumes of Lettere, came out in 1623, the year of Cebà's death.