Tommaso Sgricci was born in Castiglion Fiorentino, Arezzo (Grand Duchy of Tuscany) into a modest family, from Jacopo, a physician, and the Florentine Assunta Lorenzi.

He knew how to create spontaneous poetry by using the Italian poetic language of prefabricated sentences, and to interpret it spectacularly on stage, declaiming so quickly that his audience can not evaluate the quality of the verse (thus receiving criticism from famous writers of the time, such as Pietro Giordani, a dear friend of Giacomo Leopardi).

During a visit to Paris in 1824, he performed in front of a chosen society and successfully improvised tragedies in five acts on the themes of Bianca Cappello and the execution of Charles I of England.

Lord Byron, who met him in Ravenna, wrote on 3 March 1820:[4] Sgricci is here improvisating away with great success – he is also a celebrated Sodomite, a character by no means so much respected in Italy as it should be; but they laugh instead of burning – and the Women talk of it as a pity in a man of talent.The greatest scandal happened in 1819 when, at the height of his glory, he came to Rome to be crowned poet on the Capitoline Hill, but he was expelled from the Papal States a few days before this great honor.

The official explanation was that he would have criticized the Pope's government, but the rumour of a homosexual scandal spread,[1] as the poet Count Giovanni Giraud wrote:[5] Batillo, il tragico / dai falsi allori / stuprando Apolline / a posteriori, / le inimitabili / Sacre Eminenze / lo rincularono / sino a Firenze.Bathyllus the fakely laureate / playwright / violated Apollo / from behind, / the incomparable / Holy Eminences / sent him back / to Florence.Nevertheless, he continued to perform with great success in Paris, London and Naples.