His innovative style referred to as his 'new manner' introduced a reflective, intimate mood of painting and presaged the later pictures of Guido Reni and Guercino, as well as those of Simone Cantarini.

[2] In Bologna, he studied first under Battista Cairo[3] and later under Francesco Albani, to whom he remained closely allied, and was his most famous disciple.

He had some of the defects of his masters: his elaborate finish and his audacious artificiality in the use of color and in composition mark Albani's influence.

When the Accademia Clementina for Bolognese artists was founded in 1706, Cignani was posthumously elected Principe in absencia for life.

His most famous pictures, in addition to the Assumption already cited, are the Entry of Paul III into Bologna; the Francis I Touching for Kings Evil; a Power of Love, painted under a fine ceiling by Agostino Carracci, on the walls of a room in the ducal palace at Parma; an Adam and Eve (at The Hague); and two of Joseph and Potiphars Wife (at Dresden and Copenhagen).