Giovanni Battista Brocchi was born in Bassano del Grappa and studied jurisprudence at the University of Padua, but his attention was turned to mineralogy and botany.

These researches procured him the office of inspector of mines in the recently established Kingdom of Italy, and enabled him to extend his investigations over a great part of the country.

[2] In 1811 Brocchi produced a valuable essay entitled Memoria mineralogica sulla Valle di Fassa in Tirolo; but his most important work is the Conchiologia fossile subapennina con osservazioni geologiche sugli Apennini, e sul suolo adiacente (2 vols., Milan, 1814), containing accurate details of the structure of the Apennine range, and an account of the marine shell fossils of the Italian Tertiary strata compared with existing species.

Brocchi pointed out that these materials were derived either from Monte Albano, an extinct volcano, twelve miles from the city, or from the Monti Cimini, still farther to the north.

Every facility was granted by Mehemet Ali, who in 1825 appointed him one of a commission to examine the territory of the recently conquered Kingdom of Sennar; but Brocchi fell a victim to the climate, and died at Khartoum on the 25th of September 1826, possibly of dysentery.