He was the brother of the Italian writer and archaeologist Francesco Scipione.
His plays, of which Merope (1774), an adaptation in blank verse of the tragedies of Maffei and Voltaire, and Medea (1775), a melodrama, are best known, were mostly based on French originals and had considerable influence in counteracting the formlessness and irregularity of the Sturm und Drang drama.
She was celebrated in a number of different roles including Merope in a play by Maffei, and in various heroine roles of Alfieri plays.
Francesco Rosi | Francesco Clemente | Francesco Bartolozzi | Francesco Guardi | Francesco Guccini | Francesco Marino Mannoia | Maffei | Francesco Severi | Francesco Cossiga | Francesco Moser | Francesco Mondada | Gian Francesco Malipiero | Giovanni Francesco Fara | Francesco Redi | Francesco Quinn | Francesco Graziani | Francesco De Gregori | Francesco Crispi | Francesco Conconi | Francesco Barberini | Dan Maffei | Michele Maffei | Giuseppe Marchese | Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini | Francesco Sartori | Francesco Ruggieri | Francesco Paolo Bontade | Francesco I da Carrara | Francesco Grimaldi | Francesco Coppola |
An antiquarian with a humanist education whose publications on Etruscan antiquities stand as incunabula of Etruscology, he engaged in running skirmishes in print with his rival in the field of antiquities, Antonio Francesco Gori.