Domenico Parodi came from a family of artists. He travelled with his father Filippo, a sculptor and wood carver, to Venice, Padua and Rome at an early age, learning in the workshops of various painters. His two earliest surviving works date from 1700 and can both still be seen in the Roman church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. He soon returned to his home town of Genoa, where he received numerous commissions from the city's nobility: in addition to portraits, which he executed both on canvas and in marble, he painted illusionist frescoes with mythological and allegorical themes in several Genoese palazzi.