Born at Moliterno, Basilicata, at the time part of the Kingdom of Naples, his birth name was Ferdinando Petruccelli and he added "della Gattina" (name of a farm of his own) to his surname in order to avoid the Bourbon police who persecuted him for political reason.

He attended courses at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, studied French and English literature and pursued a brilliant career as a journalist, becoming known and appreciated in Europe.

Petrucelli was a Freemason who held speeches at the Italian Chamber of Deputies against the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Pius IX and his temporal power.

In 1870 he followed the Franco-Prussian War, recounting the events from the Parisian barricades and, after the fall of the Paris Commune, he was expelled from France by order of Adolphe Thiers (against which he turned bitter words) for having defended the Communards.

During his time, Ferdinando Petruccelli della Gattina wasn't much appreciated in Italy, rather he was rejected by many (especially the clerical hierarchies because of his marked anticlericalism), with the exception of authors such as Salvatore Di Giacomo and Luigi Capuana.

He was acclaimed in foreign countries, especially in France, where his work received positive reviews from Alphonse Peyrat, Ernest Renan and Jules Claretie, who said about his war correspondence of Custoza : "Nothing could be more fantastic and cruelly true than this tableau of agony.