Ordained a priest in 1854 and a professor in the archdiocesan seminaries, he entered the Foreign Missions the following year and departed for Hong Kong in 1859, working there for a short time before being chosen as secretary to the Visitor of the Chinese Missions, Bishop Celestino Spelta. Repatriated due to illness at the end of 1862, he became professor of theology and French at his Institute’s seminary. Upon the death of Bishop Giuseppe Marinoni (v.) in 1891, he succeeded him as director of the Institute, which he governed until his death with a strong sense of responsibility.
A learned theologian and deeply versed in ascetical doctrine (he was a member of the Theological Faculty of Milan), he left a vast body of work in these two fields, not to mention numerous biographies of deceased missionaries of his Institute. Among his writings, the book *Se sia lecito abbracciare i morti* (Milan 1885) gained some notice, as it appears to have influenced—if not determined—the condemnation of cremation by the Holy Office (19 May 1886). He was among the first editors of *L’Osservatore cattolico* and for many years oversaw the Italian edition of the *Annales de l’œuvre de la Propagation de la Foi* on behalf of the Work itself. In 1872 he began publishing *Le Missioni cattoliche*, a fortnightly of the same Work, enriching its content with reports from missionaries of his and other Institutes. In 1874 he founded the *Tipografia S. Giuseppe*. Scurati also showed talent in poetry, music, and especially painting, leaving fine examples in the illustrations of his travel memoirs through China, undertaken as Spelta’s secretary and published anonymously in *Le Missioni cattoliche* from 1874 to 1877. In 1892, in homage to the memory of his predecessor, he published the latter’s writings. He had also planned a history of the missions of his Institute, but did not live to complete II.