PAOLO

See also:

• PAOLO PARUTA (1540-1598)

PARUTA (1540-1598)  , Venetian historian . After studying at Padua he served the Venetian republic in various political capacities, including that of secretary to one of the Venetian delegates at the Council of Trent . In 1579 he published a work entitled Della Perfezione della vita politica, and the same year he was appointed official historian to the republic, in succession to Luigi Contarini . He took up the narrative from where Cardinal Bembo had left it, in 1513, and brought it down to 1551 . He was made provveditore to the Chamber of Loans in 158o, savio del gran consiglio in 1590, and governor of Brescia in the following year . In 1596 he was appointed provveditore of St Mark, and in 1597 superintendent of fortifications . He died a year later . His history, which was at first written in Latin and subsequently in Italian, was not published until after his death—in 1599 . Among his other works may be mentioned a history of the War of Cyprus (1570-72), and a number of political orations . See Apostolo Zeno's edition of Paruta's history (in the series Degli Istorici delle cose veneziane, Venice, 1718), and C . Monzani's edition of Paruta's political works (Florence, 1852) .