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

As a student he made many excursion in Friuli to collect specimens for the Botanical Garden of Rome, including live alpine plants.

[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.