A driving circuit drives an electro-optical device in which a gray-scale level of each of a plurality of electro-optical elements provided so as to correspond to a plurality of data lines is controlled on the basis of a voltage of a corresponding data line. The driving circuit includes a pulse output circuit that outputs a plurality of sampling pulses, each of the plurality of sampling pulses becoming an active level sequentially; a plurality of unit circuits each of which is supplied with a sampling pulse from the pulse output circuit; and a signal line that is supplied with a gray-scale signal to sequentially designate a gray-scale level of each of the electro-optical elements. Each of the plurality of unit circuits has a first switching element that samples the gray-scale signal supplied to the signal line in accordance with a sampling pulse output from the pulse output circuit; a second switching element that is inserted between the first switching element and the data line and enters an off state until a predetermined period passes from a time when sampling operation is started by the first switching element; and a storage capacitor that holds a voltage of an output terminal of the second switching element.