 In acknowledgment of his mathematical and artistic distinction, and in return for his services managing the water and street systems of Modena, Abbati was permitted in 1818 to add the name Marescotti to his own surname.He was born in Modena and received a superior education in mathematics at the university there, studying with Luigi Fantini, Paolo Cassiani and Giovan Battista Venturi.In an 1802 letter to his friend Paolo Ruffini, Abbati extended the proof to the unsolvability of equations of degree greater than five.