Canziani was the daughter of the painter Louisa Starr (1845-1909) and Enrico Canziani (1848-1931), an Italian civil engineer. She was a painter of portraits, landscapes, illustrator and decorator. She trained as an artist, studying first at the 'Copernicus', a Kensington school run by Sir Arthur Cope and Erskine Nicholl, then at the RA schools. She exhibited at the RA and travelled extensively throughout Europe. She published an autobiography, Round About Three Palace Green (1939).