He joined the Order of Friars Minor Conventual in Catania on 2 July 1823, taking the names Antonio Maria.

On 9 June 1851 he was elected Socius and Assistant General of the Conventual Franciscans and a year later the Provincial for Sicily and Malta.

[1] In 1858 he accompanied the Apostolic Nuncio to the Austro-Hungarian Empire Antonio Saverio De Luca on a successful mission to resolve a dispute over interreligious marriages in Transylvania, a notably multi-religious society.

[2] Probably based on his role in that diplomatic mission, on 30 September 1861 Pope Pius IX made him Cardinal Priest of San Girolamo dei Croati, one of the Austrian churches of Rome.

One near contemporary reported that he was viewed negatively in Rome: "People attributed to him the character of an avaricious, ignorant, truculent man, bent on carrying out the retrograde of Pope Pius XI, and on perpetuating the war between the Church and civil society.