Fabrizio Petri was born in Ancona on 11th October 1962. He belongs to a family traditionally linked to the Military forces as his father is a pilot officer in the Italian Air Force. In his early childhood his father's career was the reason of the frequent family moves.

He attended university in Bologna, where he graduated in Law discussing his thesis in International Law on Jus Cogens and he decided to pursue a diplomatic career.

Since the very beginning of his career on February 13, 1989, he has held several diplomatic functions both abroad and at the headquarters in Rome. He covered the role of First Secretary at the Embassy of Italy in New Delhi and later he held the role of Commercial Counsellor at the Italian Embassy in Paris. In Rome, as well as positions held at the Office of the General Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he covered the position of Head of the Office for Central Europe and the Baltics, and then the position of Head of the Italian Delegation in occasion of the G8 Presidency in 2009.

The experience of the G8 has been narrated in Diplomathìa ... the art of learning twice: messages from the G8 ( Rubbettino , 2010), a collective book edited by Fabrizio Petri along with another Italian Diplomat, Fabrizio Lobasso.

Fabrizio Petri currently holds the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary and from 1 September 2016 he was appointed Chairman of the Interministerial Committee for Human Rights. From 9 November 2021 he was also appointed Special Envoy of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for the Human Rights of LGBTIQ+ persons. He has developed a growing interest in India, country that he often visits and where he has many friends. He met many figures of international importance, including the American James Hillman and the Italian Tiziano Terzani , with whom he had built a strong friendship.

From 19 February 2024 he assumed the functions of Ambassador of Italy to Uruguay.

Fabrizio Petri is also a gay activist, very involved in the struggle for the progress of civil rights and in particular the human rights of LGBTI people, both in Italy and abroad. He is among the founders and was President of the Globe-MAE Association, which groups LGBTI employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Fabrizio Petri has made the ethical choice not to eat meat or fish and not to wear leather, coherently with a vegetarianism that embraces nonviolence.