Born in Alexandria from a Jewish family, after the death of his mother Clara, he returned with his father Marco in Italy, in Pisa.
[1] Then he approached the Italian Society of Anthropology and Ethnology founded in Florence by Paolo Mantegazza (1870), becoming interested to the ethno-anthropological studies.
In 1883 he visited Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia, reaching to the Turkestan, places where he collected numerous items of ethnographic interest.
In 1886, he left for New Guinea together with Elio Modigliani, but for health reasons he just stood briefly in India.
[1] Soon he turned his scientific and ethnographic interests towards New Guinea, already partially explored between 1865 and 1886 by Luigi Maria d'Albertis and Odoardo Beccari.