Soprani belonged to a prominent aristocratic family and served twice as a senator of the Republic of Genoa.

He received a broad humanist education and also dabbled in painting, studying under Giulio Benso and Pellegro Piola.

Influenced by Sinibaldo Scorza and Gottfried Wals, he became a good landscape painter.

[1] His friendship with Benso, and the popularity of Vasari's biographies, led Soprani to collect informations about Ligurian painters, sculptors, and architects.

[2] Soprani's work was published in 1674, two years after the author’s death, enlarged and revised by Giovanni Nicolò Cavanna and illustrated with engravings by Domenico Piola.