On the day Fr. Mazzuchelli was born in Milan, his home region of Italy—Lombardy—was ruled by the conquering emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte. Though politically oppressed, Fr. Mazzuchelli’s closeknit family was commercially successful. Shortly after his 17th birthday, the young man left his family to answer the call to become a Dominican, a friar of the Order of Preachers. By that time, the order barely existed in Europe, having had all of its property confiscated, its communal rhythms halted and freedoms curtailed by invading French and Austrian powers.
Approximately a month after his 18th birthday, Fr. Mazzuchelli made his religious profession, pledging the single vow required of Dominicans: life-long obedience. Soon the novice received his formal assignment: move to Rome and study for priesthood. At the ancient Convento Sta Sabina, he studied Latin, French, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics, theology and more, with special attention to the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. The student’s father asked that his son pose for a formal portrait, an unusual request for one in Fr. Mazzuchelli’s position and an unprecedented expense. Perhaps his father could sense the world-spanning work that would soon whisk the son across the world.
Several months after Fr. Mazzuchelli’s 21st birthday, he received permission to set out for the American missions even though he had yet to be ordained a priest. The journey to the Diocese of Cincinnati took six months.
Fr. Mazzuchelli studied in Ohio until Bishop Fenwick ordained him a priest two months prior to his 24th birthday. A month later, the young man departed for his first appointment: to be the sole missionary and parish priest for the northernmost region of the diocese, a frontier region of the Northwest Territory, an area including all of modern-day Wisconsin, and portions of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota.
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