His parents were Ascanio Savorgnan di Brazzà, a sculptor and painter who had studied under Antonio Canova, and Giacinta Simonetti, Marquise of Gavignano.

The results of his topographical, geomorphological and naturalistic research were published in 1883 in the Bollettino of the Società Geografica Italiana (Italian Geographic Society).

[1] In 1882 Brazzà was commissioned by the French government to carry out naturalistic research in the Congo, collecting botanical, zoological and geological specimens for the Museum of Natural History in Paris.

[2] On 24 November 1884 the Belgians Guillaume Casman and Charles Liebrechts reached Msuata on the Congo, where they met Brazzà and Attilio Pécile, who were going by canoe to the Alima River.

[2] The Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome and the Musée de l'Homme in Paris have collections of Brazzà's specimens and anthropological materials.

[1] Pentadiplandra brazzeana was first described by French botanist and physician Henri Ernest Baillon in 1886, who assigned it to the family Capparaceae, based on a specimen from Osika in Congo collected by Brazza.