Very little can be said with certainty about the biography of Imperial. In the rubrics that appear above three of his poems in the "Cancionero de Baena", we are told that he was born in Genoa and lived in Seville. Gonzalo Argote de Molina, a 16th-century Spanish genealogist, reports that Imperial belonged to one of the noble families of Genoa, from which families two consuls were periodically appointed to promote Genoese interests in Seville. Some have connected Francisco Imperial to a “Jaimes Emperial,” who is mentioned in the will of Pedro the Cruel, suggesting that this Jaimes Emperial may be the father of the poet, but this identification is uncertain. It seems that Imperial served as the lieutenant of the Admiral of Castile: a 1403 letter from King Martin I of Aragon is addressed to “” Another document from 1409 refers to the “herederos de miçer Francisco Imperial”: this has been viewed as indicating that by this date the poet had died. These documents constitute the extent of our knowledge about Imperial’s life.