[1] His father favoured a military career for him but, after passing some years at a nearby Jesuit college, he entered the Cistercian monastery of the Congregation of the Feuillants at Pinerolo in 1624.

He welcomed the expiration of his third term, in the scholar's hope that he would be allowed to enjoy a life of retirement and study, but his intimate friend, Pope Alexander VII, wishing to honour his culture and piety, made him Consultor to the Congregation of the Index and to the Holy Office.

His "Manuductio ad cælum" (1658) is often compared to Thomas a Kempis's "The Imitation of Christ" on account of simplicity of the style in which the solid doctrine is taught.

Shortly after his ordination he collected some of the most beautiful passages in the Church Fathers on the Mass, and later published them in a booklet, which with certain additions grew into his "De Sacrificio Missae".

He was a deep student of antiquity, and so successful in treating of the use of the Psalter in the Christian Church ("De Divinâ Psalmodiâ", Paris, 1663) that Cardinal Pallavicini urged him to undertake the history of the Mass.