[1] Born in Corte Franca[2] in the time of the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, he was ordained priest for his native diocese of Brescia in 1855.

The pope said that Bonomelli "founded an Agency for the Assistance of Italians who had migrated to other parts of Europe.

From this Agency arose many institutions and flourishing centers of civic education and welfare.

In 1900, devout priests and eminent laymen attracted to the work founded successful 'missions' in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and France".

Pope Leo XIII in turn thanked the bishop, saying that he had feared "those who [strove] to wrest [Bonomelli's] writings to support their own views" and insisted that the Pope's "civil princedom is not a question between man and man, but that the liberty of exercising [his] apostolic rights and duties is at stake, and this liberty ought not to be in the power and will of another".