 Born in Bologna, Righi was educated in his home town, taught physics at Bologna Technical College between 1873 and 1880, and left to take up the newly established chair of physics at the University of Palermo.He was professor of physics at the University of Padua (1885–89) and later returned to a professorship at the University of Bologna.Righi's early research, conducted in Bologna between 1872 and 1880, was primarily in electrostatics.