As a prominent Venetian, he traversed the Venetian cursus honorum, becoming in turn, provveditore, podestà, and Procurator of St Mark's. He was set to become doge in 1606, but was not helped by the fact that the Memmo were one of the "vecchie" ("old"), Venetian noble families and every doge from 1382 on had been a member of one of the "nuove" ("new") Venetian noble families. He was thus unable to win support for his election in 1606, and lost out to Leonardo Donato.
