Once private secretary to Cardinal Luigi Galimberti, he was also a canon of the chapter of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria, and was raised to the rank of an Honorary Chamberlain on 22 May 1898.

Cremonesi served as notary for the processes of the candidates to become Italian bishops, and later as Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Works of Religion from 1909 to 1921.

On 29 December 1921, Cremonesi was appointed Privy Almoner of His Holiness and titular archbishop of Nicomedia by Pope Benedict XV.

He received his episcopal consecration on 8 January 1922 from Pope Benedict himself, with Archbishop Giovanni Nasalli Rocca di Corneliano and Bishop Agostino Zampini, OSA, serving as co-consecrators, in the Sistine Chapel.

He resigned the prelature in 1928, and described Benito Mussolini's fifty-five-minute-long audience with Pope Pius XI in February 1932 as "very long".