He was educated under the eye of his father, who took his son with him to Rome in his embassy from the Venetian Republic to Pope Urban VIII.

In 1648, he returned to Venice, after having obtained from the court of France a considerable aid of men and money for the defence of Candia against the Ottoman Empire.

The superintendence of the affairs of war and the finances was then entrusted to him; and in 1664, he was sent ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire, which he again visited on the accession of the Emperor Leopold.

Nani's History was translated into French by François Tallemant (1679) and Masclary (1702), and continued by Michele Foscarini and Piero Garzoni.

Leopold von Ranke published his view on the conspiracy in Über die Verschwörung gegen Venedig, im Jahre 1618 (1831).