He was a merchant banker who, with others, lent money under usurious conditions during the crusades with the consent and support of the papacy.
Following the 1260 victory of the Ghibellines over the Florentine Guelphs in the Battle of Montaperti, Cavalcanti went into exile in Lucca in Tuscany.
He returned from exile in 1266 and married his son Guido to the daughter of Farinata degli Uberti, a prominent Ghibelline.
In lines 52-72 of the tenth canto of Dante's Inferno, the poet converses with Cavalcanti about his son, Guido, and depicts the dead father as a doting parent.
Dante represents Cavalcanti and Farinata as neighbors in the same tomb in Hell, but without any interaction between them.