PARUTA, PAOLO (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 1580, 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).