In this concise, well-researched biography, Nello Tagliaferri, drawing on considerable research, offers a nuanced and balanced panorama of Cardinal Bacci's life and career. An abundance of lively details, coupled with the author's masterly use of primary sources, make this little biography enjoyable and informative reading. This vivid chronicle of Cardinal Bacci’s intellectual passion for the Latin language, literature, and the salvation of souls shines a light on both the notable people he influenced and the topics that fascinated him throughout his career. Cardinal Bacci will be remembered by many not only as a stalwart of Catholic tradition in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council but also as the greatest Vatican Latinist of the first half of the twentieth century. Lo Bello’s translation is excelled only by his masterful and erudite foreword. — Patrick M. Owens, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Classics, Hillsdale College

Cardinal Antonio Bacci was among the last in a long line of papal Latinists whose service was to express complex ideas with clarity and accuracy, and yet to endow simple communications with elegance and style. He was the product of a world where the established tradition and praxis owed much to the Latinity of a golden age, and he, by his own scholarship and practice of the art, did much to preserve, codify, and promote this approach to the use of Latin as the official language of the Catholic Church. We must be grateful that Arouca Press is now presenting Tagliaferri’s insightful memoir of Bacci in Lo Bello’s highly readable English translation. This is certainly an important part of our story that must not be lost. — Msgr. Andrew R. Wadsworth, Ph.D., Former Executive Director of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.

Cardinal Bacci is a name that hardly needs an introduction: still, his biography illustrates how his devotion and erudition fed one another and were never mutually exclusive; so in an era when “fides” and “ratio” can be placed at opposite poles by those in politics — and even by well-known members of the Church — it's a relief to read this smooth translation of a great life. This book is paired perfectly with Arouca’ With Latin in the Service of the Popes (in which Lo Bello both wrote a great translation and did us the favor of including lovely snippets of some original Latin masterpieces). 

Perhaps the greatest benefit of this biography is to glimpse inside the psyche of the courageous and courteous man who indeed served God first but also four very different Popes, besides his earlier work in seminary.  This was an encouragement to me personally, but also a glimpse back in time when personal relationships in the Vatican took precedence over clear differences in opinion.  May it be so again, by our imitation of Cardinal Bacci's studiosity and sanctity! — Jonathan P. Arrington, Instructor, St. John Vianney Seminary, Lay Division