[1] While he was a child his mother obtained service with the noble P. A. Bragadin, leaving Miani with some relatives, where he tried to learn the art of wood carving.

He was reunited with his mother in 1824, and from then on Bragadin ensured that he had a "princely education" in music, letters, languages, dance, science, martial arts and drawing.

In 1844 he published the first issue of Storia universale della musica di tutte le nazioni (General history of the music of all nations).

[2] He moved to Rome at the start of the revolution in 1848, then to the papal division of the Venetian Republic under General Andrea Ferrari (1770–1849), where he became sergeant major in the land artillery and participated in the defense of Marghera and the fort of San Secondo.

He visited Palestine and then spent a year in Cairo where he worked as a tutor to the Lucovich family and then as director of some experimental rice plantations while studying archaeology and philology.

[4] In 1857 he visited Upper Nubia with two young Frenchmen, and drew a map of the region based on his own observations and the accounts of sailors, merchants, hunters and missionaries.

He had the map printed in Paris in 1858 and presented a copy to Napoleon III, along with his project for exploring the Nile basin to find the river's source.

[5] Returning to Egypt on 10 May 1859 Miani left Cairo on two boats accompanied by a navy captain in charge of astronomical research, a photographer, a painter and an Arabic-French translator.

He made an excursion to Sennar on a government boat between 20 September 1859 and 7 November 1859 with a company that included his wife and son, Debono and four soldiers.

[1] He travelled with Debono's company, of which Samuel Baker wrote, "de Bono's people are the worst of the lot, having utterly destroyed the country.

[1] In one incident related by Miani, the soldiers tried to trade a woman they had captured to the chief of a Madi village in exchange for ivory and also asked for a bag of grain.

A fight broke out and the king was killed, his hands cut off to remove his bracelets, and his dismembered and castrated body paraded on the soldiers' weapons.

[4] In July and August, he travelled by boat on the Nile and then by camels and dromedaries to Suakin on the Red Sea, where he met the explorer Carlo Piaggia.

He published an account of his journey which was sent to all the European geographical societies, and sent an extract with a sketch map to the Egyptian Foreign Minister, who responded by guaranteeing aid for further exploration in the form of scientific instruments, money and transport.

On 27 October 1862, Miani proposed to the Venice Chamber of Commerce to set up a deposit of beads and pearls in Khartoum to be traded for local goods, particularly ivory.

In 1863 Miani was welcomed in Vienna by the Austrian Geographic Society and presented to Franz Joseph I of Austria, who offered to finance a new expedition.

He tried to arrange further income by conducting research for some European museums on a commission basis, working for traders, and undertaking economic investigations for the cities of Trieste and Venice.

[1] Miani returned to Egypt with an agreement to accompany a trading company in an expedition to the Mangbetu region in search of ivory.

[1] He arrived in Lao in August, where he stayed until mid-September, and was with the Ajar tribe in October, then passed the month of Ramadan at Farial on the Rohl.

[9] In January Miani crossed the Congo-Nile Divide and entered the basin of the Uele River, which the local people called the Kibali.

In the second half of November, walking in short stages, they reached Mbunsa's residence at Tangasi (Nangazizi), south of Niangara, for the second time.

He was the first to report the existence to the northwest, beyond the Ababua, of the Abandya, a third group of Zande people, whom Junker met on the lower Uele eight years later.

[9] In his writings Miani condemned slavery, but he profited from the protection of the merchant's troops and approved of their brutal treatment of the local people.