With the expulsion of the Jesuits from Orvieto, he spent the year 1860-61 in Gradoli, continuing however to study privately with Don GB Polverini.

[2] In 1876, he taught canon law at the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary, and the following year was made deputy chair of ecclesiastical history at Propaganda Fide.

[3] In April 1877, he was appointed to the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, which handled diplomatic relations between the Holy See and foreign governments.

He served as Secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs from 20 April 1889 to 23 June 1891, when he was named nuncio to France where he was to pursue a reconciliation between the Church and the French state.

Ferrata played an important part in the preparation of Quam singulari the 1910 decree concerning the admittance of children to communion.

In January 1914 Pope Pius X named him to succeed Mariano Cardinal Rampolla, who had died on 13 December 1913, as Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.

The newly elected Pope Benedict XV appointed Ferrata Secretary of State, in place of Rafael Merry del Val.