Born at Mondovì, in what is now the province of Cuneo, he entered the Royal Guard corps of the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1822.

In the 1830s, after having been discovered as member of a liberal plot which aimed to extort a constitution from king Charles Felix, he moved first to France and then to Belgium, where he enrolled in a foreign corps of Belgian Revolution.

Later, he was Major General of the Papal Army, in command of a Papal division in the Veneto, where he was not able to fulfil his task of stopping general Nugent's Austrian forces.

In 1849 Durando spent a period in Sardinia where he quenched popular revolts in Sassari and in Gallura.

His brother Giacomo was also a general and senator (and fought with Giovanni in Belgium, Portugal and Spain), while another brother, Giovanni Antonio, was army general.