[2] Usually the new patriarch was a Venetian diplomat or administrator, as with Lorenzo Priuli in 1591 or Francesco Vendramin in 1608, though some were career clerics, who had usually been previously in positions in Rome, like Federico Cornaro in 1631.
[3] He had a classical education and at the same time oriented towards a political career, so that already in 1562 he was elected among the Elders of the Orders of the Republic of Venice (a deliberative but powerless body, responsible for instructing the young nobility in government), subsequently entering the College of the Wise Men on the Orders (the body charged with supervision of maritime matters and the Republic's oversees colonies).
He was special ambassador to Venice for the marriage of Francesco, son of Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, to Giovanna, daughter of Emperor Ferdinand I in 1566.
On the morning of 27 January 1591, he was consecrated bishop in the venetian church of Sant'Elena by the Nuncio, Marcello Acquaviva, Archbishop of Otranto,[4] and on the same day he was formally installed as Patriarch.
From 9 to 11 September 1592 he celebrated a metropolitan synod for the reform of the clergy, issuing decrees regarding the use of images in churches, according to the directives of the Council of Trent.