He was born on February 2, 1457 at Arona, near Anghiera (called now Angera) on Lake Maggiore, Lombardy, Italy. He went to Rome in 1477, at the age of twenty, and there he met important persons of the Catholic Church. In 1486, Anghiera met the Spanish ambassador in Rome, and with him to Spain in August, 1487, to the court of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.