Born to a noble family in Perugia, Beccuti, nicknamed "Coppetta", held public office and lived the uneventful life of a provincial literary figure there. He died and was buried (in the church od San Francesco al Prato) in his native city.

Beccuti profited from the enormous tolerance of homosexuality, which existed in Italy just before the start of the Counter-Reformation, to discuss his homosexual loves with a frankness which would become unthinkable only a few decades later. Sufice it to say that among his poems number two long compositions on the pros and cons of homosexual sodomy.

Most of homosexual verse of Beccuti concerns his love for Francesco Bigazzini, a twenty-some years old young man, whom he called Alessi, which lasted from 1547 to 1553. But Bigazzini ws heterosexual and did not appreciate the declarations of Beccuti.