Xanto Avelli was born in Rovigo, in the Veneto, sometime in the late 1480s. Nothing at all is known of his origins, his teaching, or his early years; he is first recorded as working in Urbino in 1530, when he is mentioned in a notarial document describing attempts by a group of pottery workers, or "interlaboratores artis figuli", to form an early trade union for the purpose of raising wages. 1530 is also the date on his earliest signed piece, a plate commemorating the coming new year. It is signed ".f.X.A.R.", and is further marked "î Urbino".