Born in Venice, Visentini was a pupil of the widely travelled Baroque painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini,[1] who had painted some decors in English country houses at the beginning of the 18th century.

Visentini is best known today as the engraver for Canaletto's first great series of Venetian vedute published under the title Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus Celebriores ex Antonii Canal,[2] organised by British resident Joseph (Consul) Smith (1682–1770).

On the Grand Canal, Visentini was commissioned to redesign the façade of the residence of Consul Smith, the Palazzo Balbi.

Visentini's work, the Osservazioni,[4] published in Venice in 1771, was intended as a complement and an extension of a treatise by Teofilo Gallacini (1564–1641), which concerned itself with the errors of Mannerist and early Baroque architecture.

[5] Visentini's engravings in the Osservazioni illustrate his proposed modifications correcting Baroque architectural details.