A pupil of Pagliano as a printmaker, Banfi won in 1876 the prize Girotti for etchers. He was a pupil at the Brera of the painters R. Casnedi and G. Bertini and won with his painting Erodiade, 1878, the Oggioni prize. In the 80s he painted genre and landscape works and paintings of interiors. He died at a young age.