 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.