Vicenzo Lunardi was born in Lucca

Lucca

Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...

, Italy. His family were of minor Neapolitan nobility, and his father had married late in life. Vicenzo was one of three children. He travelled in France in his early years before being called home, where he was put into the diplomatic service.

Vincenzo Lunardi had come to England as Secretary to Prince Caramanico, the Neapolitan Ambassador.

There was a flying craze in France and Scotland with James Tytler

James Tytler

James Tytler was a Scottish apothecary and the editor of the second edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. Tytler became the first person in Britain to steer a hot air balloon ....

, Scotland's first aeronaut and the first Briton to fly, but even so and after a year since the invention of the balloon

Hot air balloon

The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is in a class of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air...

, the English were still skeptical, and so George Biggin and 'Vincent' Lunardi, "The Daredevil Aeronaut", together decided to demonstrate a hydrogen balloon flight at the Artillery Ground

Artillery Ground

The Artillery Ground in Finsbury is one of London's most centrally located cricket grounds, situated just off the City Road immediately north of the City of London...

 of the Honourable Artillery Company

Honourable Artillery Company

The Honourable Artillery Company was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1537 by King Henry VIII. Today it is a Registered Charity whose purpose is to attend to the “better defence of the realm"...

 in London on 15 September 1784.