 Some documents suggest that the Cagnacci came from Castel Durante, but it is also possible that they hailed from Rimini, where Matteo moved in 1618.Not much is known about Guido's early life or training as a painter, though he is widely characterized as an autodidact.According to Giovan Battista Costa (the artist's eighteenth-century biographer), Cagnacci "had been given such marvelous talent from nature to become a painter that he began to practice this noble art all by himself and one could say almost without master."