moved to Rome, where he would be educated under the presence of his cardinal uncle. He spent his education in Rome first at the Pontifical Roman Major before attending the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Institute and the La Sapienza college where he went on to obtain a theological doctorate through an apostolic brief on 23 April 1845. Sforza later received the ecclesiastical habit on 1 January 1825; his hair was shaved at the top for the clerical tonsure a month after on 13 February which he received from Cardinal Luigi Ruffo-Scilla. Sforza received the minor orders from Scilla on 25 December 1826 and later the subdiaconate from Giuseppe della Porta Rodiani on 21 April 1832 (in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran) before Rodiani invested Sforza into the diaconate on 22 December 1832. He received his ordination to the priesthood in Naples on 1 September 1833 from Filippo Giudice Caracciolo. He commenced his pastoral duties in evening schools, worked in prisons for women, and also worked alongside apprentices. He served as a papal legate in Paris in 1836 to present the red biretta to new Cardinal Jean-Louis Anne Madalain Lefebvre de Cheverus, returning from France that 27 June. Sforza first worked for some time as a chamberlain to the pope (since November 1836) and in 1828 was made the "abbot commendatario" for the San Paolo in Albano convent (he took possession of the convent on 12 February 1828). In addition, he was also named as the vicar of the cardinal camerlengo in the school of Santa Maria in Via Lata Latain on 22 June 1837. In 1829 he served as a conclavist for his cardinal uncle at the conclave that elected Pope Pius VIII. On 30 September 1838 he was made a canon for Saint Peter's Basilica, and in 1841 was made the private aide to the pope. Sforza later accompanied the pontiff on the latter's September 1841 trip to Umbria and Rieti in 1842. He contributed to the conversion to Roman Catholicism of the count Ernest von Stackelberg and the return to the Church of prince Augustin Petrovich Galitzin. Episcopate On 12 April 1845, King Ferdinando II proposed to the pope that Sforza assume the see of Bishopric of Aversa, which he took a week later on 24 April. Sforza received his episcopal consecration as a bishop one month later on 24 May in a side chapel in Saint Peter's Basilica