Born in Rome, he was the son of Giovanni Battista Antonio Visconti, the curator of Pope Clement XIV, who reorganised and restored the papal collection of antiquities, as the Museo Pio-Clementino.

"[3] He also published the antiquities collected in Greece by Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet in Museum Worsleyanum (1794)[4] and the sculptures in the Villa Borghese, (1796).

With the restoration of papal control in Rome he had to emigrate to Paris, where his presence was most welcome: "this event we considered as one of the happiest results of our victories", wrote the antiquary Aubin-Louis Millin de Grandmaison.

[8] When Parliamentary debates were mooting the acquisition of the Elgin Marbles for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Visconti was among the scholars asked to offer statements of their cultural value; his memoir was translated into English and published.

Visconti is also a liminal figure at the beginnings of modern art history, as when, Haskell and Penny note, he concedes that he has perhaps overestimated the beauty of a statue in his delight at recognising in it the portrait of Phocion.