Born at Calitri, in the Province of Avellino, he graduated in medicine from the University of Naples in 1872. Having trained at the Institute of Pathological Anatomy under Otto von Schrön (1837-1917), he worked as surgeon at the Hospital for the Incurable in Naples and as vaccinating physician at the Town Hall of the same city. Full professor of General Pathology from 1882 at the University di Messina, he was called upon to occupy, after barely a year, the Chair of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Catania, a position that he was to abandon in favour of a similar post offered him by the University of Pisa in 1884. A pioneer in the field of embryonal infective pathology, he achieved important results in the study of tuberculosis, arriving at the point of distinguishing the bacillus responsible for the disease in birds from that of human and bovine tuberculosis (1890), at the time thought to be a single infecting agent. Of his prolific activity there remain numerous manuscripts, prints, drawings and watercolours illustrating, with meticulous precision, the observations made in many years of medical practice. Falling ill of "malarial fever", he died in Pisa at the age of 56.