Giovanni Segatini, who only later changed his name to Segantini from the nickname "Segante" given to him by his Milanese friends, was born in Arco in Trentino on 15 January 1858. His father Agostino is a peddler of trinkets, often far from home in an attempt to lift the fate of a dramatically precarious family economic situation.

The mother, Margherita de ’Girardi, a young woman from the Val di Fiemme; seriously ill after giving birth, she died, not yet thirty-seven years old, in March 1865. The mother's one, "beautiful as a spring sunset" in the painter's memories, will be one of the main reasons inspiring the art of Segantini.