To add to the respectability, and, as he hoped, to the emoluments of his situation, the relations of his wife obtained for him the Genoese consulship at Venice. This office, however, turned out more honourable than lucrative: no salary attended it, and the fees did not amount to more than 100 crowns a year. To do the republic he served honour, he had taken a better house and increased his number of servants, and found himself considerably embarrassed. To add to these annoyances, his income from Modena failed him; and he came to a resolution to make a journey, with the triple object of bringing out a comedy with a part for a favourite actress at Bologna, to solicit a salary at Genoa, and to look after his possessions at Modena: the first object failed before he set out, through the sudden death of the actress, while an unexpected disaster rendered the two latter even more imperative than before. His brother, who was out of employ, introduced to him a Ragusan of agreeable and gentlemanly manners. He asserted that he was sent on the secret service of raising a regiment of 2000 men for his state. He showed his commission as colonel, offered a company to Goldoni's brother, and the office of auditor, or judge, to the author. Goldoni, always easy-tempered and credulous, though a little frightened by the danger incurred if the Venetian state should come to suspect these proceedings, was soon talked over, and, on an alleged emergency, lent the man a large sum of money. The fellow was an adventurer: he ran off with the money, and left Goldoni so disagreeably implicated by his tricks, that he judged that his only resource was to quit Venice on the instant. The Ragusan had disappeared on the 15th of September, and on the 18th of the same month Goldoni and his wife embarked for Bologna.
Their journey was full of "many accidents of flood and field." The melancholy and thoughtfulness occasioned by his disaster vanished under the influence of his happy temperament; and his wife was even better skilled than he in that best philosophy which makes light of worldly misfortunes. On their arrival at Bologna, he was surrounded by the directors of theatres, who asked for comedies. He gave them three, and wrote another on the subject of the Ragusan swindler, in which he comforted himself, and dissipated the rest of his regrets, by representing to the life all the actors in that too real drama. This task concluded, he was about to proceed to Modena, when he heard that the duke was absent at the Spanish camp at Rimini, and that his best chance of pursuing his claims was to accompany Ferramonti, a celebrated pantaloon, to the latter town; where, in default of justice being done him by his sovereign, he might have a further resource in the company of actors to which this comedian belonged. This latter staff turned out the stoutest of the two: the duke changed the conversation when Goldoni mentioned his claims on the ducal bank; but as long as the carnival lasted, he supplied the actors with dramas, and lived a comfortable life at Rimini. At length it became necessary to depart for Genoa. The armies which then occupied the country rendered it impossible to get horses; and he and some other travellers agreed to embark for Pesaro. The sea was high, the passengers suffered: weary of their sea voyage, they disembarked half way, at Cattolica, and, leaving their effects to the care of servants, proceeded in a cart to Pesaro.