Scopoli was born at
Cavalese in the
Val di Fiemme, belonging to the
Bishopric of Trent (today's
Trentino), son of Francesco Antonio, military commissioner, and
Claudia Caterina Gramola (1699-1791), a painter from a patrician family from Trentino. He obtained a degree in medicine at
University of Innsbruck, and practised as a doctor in Cavalese and
Venice. Much of his time was spent in the
Alps,
collecting plants and
insects, of which he made outstanding collections. He spent two years as private secretary to the bishop of Seckau, and then was appointed in 1754 as physician of the
mercury mines in
Idrija, a small town in the
Habsburg realm, remaining there until 1769. In 1761, he published
De Hydroargyro Idriensi Tentamina on the symptoms of
mercury poisoning among mercury miners. Scopoli spent time studying the local natural history, publishing
Flora Carniolica (1760) as well as a major work on the insects of
Carniola, (1763). He also published a series of
Anni Historico-Naturales (1769–1772), which included first descriptions of birds from various collections.