Originating from Cordovado, he was born near the year 1430. He most likely studied at Venice, where he got his first temporary teaching. Then he taught in other Venetian notarial schools before settling in Udine where, on 31 January 1455, he engaged the teaching chair left by Giovanni da Spilimbergo. Diana soon got in contact with Guarnerio d’Artegna.
Diana’s first teaching at Udine, with the occasional cooperation of Antonio da Fondi and Gian Giacomo de Venustis from Cividale, had an end due to the town council resolution of 27 September 1464 that considered his requests (of salary and a tutor) very onerous, despite the extraordinary attendance of students. In the two-year period 1469-70 Diana accepted a teaching chair at Bassano; in 1471 and from 1485 to 1489 he was rector at Cividale, where he was present also in 1491 as a tutor next to Cimbriaco. Called back to Udine with much insistence, after Bartolomeo Uranio’s dismissal, in 1496-98 he cooperated with Daniele Caetani of Cremona. He dictated his last will on the first of August 1501 and appointed the children of a niece of his, wife to the schoolmaster Andrea Spirone, his heirs providing that they assumed his family name, Diana. He probably died in that same year. Among his distinguished students can be listed the noblemen Francesco Manin and Francesco Strassoldo, the notary Antonio Belloni and the literate Valerio Filitini.
For further information see the entry Diana Francesco, rettore di scuola written by Laura Casarsa, in Nuovo Liruti, Dizionario biografico dei Friulani, 2, L’Età veneta, edited by C. Scalon, C. Griggio, U. Rozzo, Udine, Forum, 2009, 953-956.