Monteggia started his studies in the anatomical field of medicine but was also interested in a wider biology: he practiced as a botanist and as a chemist under the supervision of Antonio Porati.

On June 11, 1781, Monteggia did the exam of “libera pratica di chirurgia” at the University of Pavia, where afterwards was to degree in medicine.

[5] This booklet is dedicated to Carlo Maria Taverna, priest of San Nazaro and member of the committee in charge the administration of ecclesiastic places, that had been instituted in 1784 by Giuseppe II.

Secondly, the author proposes a classical theme of italian anatomical research: the injuries of the head, with some first observations on the constitution and the function of the brain.

On January 20, 1792, the Hospital Congregation gave Monteggia the assignment of giving free lectures of surgery to young surgeons.

In 1792, Monteggia published the annotated translation of the "compendium on venereal illnesses" by the German author Johann Friedrich Fritze (original edition: Berlin 1790) in the printing house of Giuseppe Martelli.

With the advent of the Cisalpine Republic and subsequent Napoleonic era governments Monteggia life reached the peak of a short but fortunate career.

He fulfilled several administrative roles, both of institutes he established within different hospitals, and of public and military committees (in 1808 he was called to examine the aspiring surgeons of the army).

On September 12, 1795, Monteggia was appointed professor of the institution of surgery at the Maggiore hospital, yet teaching began only one year later.

[12] In 1796 Monteggia had published the translation from German of the Obstetric Art written by Georg Wilhelm Stein, yet leaving it without any commentary as he was very busy.

He also published a series of obstetric cases, collected in a textbook for surgeons composed to accompany the lectures at the hospital.

In addition to the Brunonian theories, Monteggia takes up, with many reservations, the doctrine of the 'controstimolo' by Giovanni Rasori, of which he attempts an application in the surgical field, although, as we read in the Preface to the second edition of the work, he is not fully convinced.

His main source of inspiration is the work of the Scottish surgeon John Hunter, but he knows and uses contemporary scientific literature, and in particular periodical publications.

Monteggia is always intent on learning from corpses the weaving of the body and to reveal from the bowels the hidden secrets of diseases.

He always writes down observations of clinical signs at the bedside of patients; in reading his memoirs there are also faithfully recorded the wrong care and, even the diagnostic errors that happened to him in the long exercise of the profession, in which, who is most worth it, the less mistakes he makes; as Hippocrates himself claimed.

[14] Monteggia died before completing his work, of which he had designed a ninth volume dedicated among other things to electricity, vaccination, and a systematic treatment of the surgical pharmacopoeia.

A monument was erected in the atrium of the Maggiore hospital, now lost, which inspired, among other things, a sonnet to Carlo Porta.