After academic studies at Accademia di San Luca in Rome under the tutelage of Alessandro Marini, he travelled through Africa and the Middle East, where he found strong suggestions and inspiration for several landscape paintings of those years.
In 1877 he moved to London, where he studied the art of painters as John Constable and William Turner.
[2] Ferrari is considered one of the most important Italian landscape painters of his time.
In particular, he used to portray the campagna romana, insomuch as founded with other painters, among which Enrico Coleman and Cesare Pascarella, the group "XXV della campagna romana".
[1] Ferrari, with Coleman, also realized the frescos for Villa Durante in Rome in 1891.