He was born in Rome. His father, was from Crotone in the south and served between 1886 and 1919 as a member of parliament. After the Badoglio Proclamation of 8 September 1943, Roberto Lucifero d'Aprigliano participated in the against the city's occupation by German forces, as a member of an underground monarchist group. In April 1944 he was captured by German Nazi paramilitaries and imprisoned in the Regina Coeli, from where he was released on 4 June 1944 as allied forces liberated Rome from the German occupation.