Nicolò Rusca was born in Bedano, a small town near Lugano, in April 1563. His father, Giovanni Antonio, and his mother, Daria Quadrio, both belonging to noble families in the Larian and Ticino areas, entrusted their son's first instruction in the care of Domenico Tarilli, parish priest of Comano.

Thus learned the foundations of grammar and rhetoric, not separated from an education strongly pervaded by the more traditional Catholic religious spirit, Rusca continued his studies, first in Pavia, then at the Jesuit college in Rome.