 He was born near Piacenza, probably at the village of Fiorenzuola d'Arda in the Duchy of Parma.His father was a gardener, and he himself became first connected with the church in the humble position of a bellringer and verger in the Duomo of Piacenza; he was twenty-one when the judge Ignazio Gardini, of Ravenna, was banished, and he followed Gardini to Ravenna, where he met the vice-legate Giorgio Barni, who was made bishop of Piacenza in 1688 and appointed Alberoni chamberlain of his household.Alberoni took priest's orders, and afterwards accompanied the son of his patron to Rome.