Visconti-Venosta's recommendation earned him the post of first secretary of legation in Madrid (1906-1907), before being sent as chargé d'affaires in Constantinople (1908-1909) where he witnessed the Young Turk Revolution. Counsellor of Embassy at London in 1909, he then made his first experience of government as cabinet secretary of the Italian foreign minister for some months in the Fortis cabinet. From 1911 to 1915, he was sent back to Beijing where he witnessed the collapse of the Chinese Empire and renegotiated the statute of the Italian concession of Tientsin with the new Chinese authorities.