Born near Lucca, as a young boy Tofanelli was apprenticed with the painter Giuseppe Antonio Luchi, a follower of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. With his fellow apprentice Bernardino Nocchi, he then moved to Rome in 1768, where they both worked with the painter Niccolò Lapiccola. In Rome with Nocchi he painted frescoes but was also employed by engravers as Volpato and Morghen to make drawings for them. Tofanelli also painted altarpieces, portraits, and mythological scenes. In 1781 he opened an Art School in Rome, but afterwards returned to Lucca, and in 1802 became Professor of Drawing in the University of San Frediano, Lucca