Minutoli initially received a wholly private education, then attended secondary school in Karlsruhe (1782 to 1784), and was instructed in military matters by an Austrian captain in the engineers.

He served as a bombardier for two years in the field artillery corps, then received officer training in an infantry regiment stationed in Magdeburg from 1789.

The scientists Wilhelm Friedrich Hemprich and Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, the architecture professor Liman and the Orientalist Scholz, among others, accompanied him.

Minutoli's collections, of which a large part was lost in a shipwreck, were purchased by the king of Prussia for 22,000 talers and formed the foundation of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin.

Generalleutnant Freiherr Menu von Minutoli died in 1846 during a visit to Berlin and was buried with honours at the Alter Garnisonfriedhof de.