PARUTA, PAOLO. - Politician and writer, b. in Venice on May 14, 1540, d. on Dec. 9, 1598. He studied in Padua. His political life follows various stages that go from his appointment as provveditore to the Chamber of Loans (1580), through other offices, among them the Embassy to Rome from 1592 to 1595, up to the very high office of procurator of St. Mark (1596).
His fame as a thinker is linked to Della perfezione della vita politica (Venice 1579) and to the Discorsi politici (ibid. 1599), where the weight of the theories of reason of state and the ethico-religious tradition coexist despite implicit contrasts, in a meditated and sincere symbiosis. P. is mindful of the harshness and difficulties of political life, but he also aspires to an ideal and abstract world of justice and brotherhood. He lives intimately the contrast between the active life and the contemplative life. Straddling the Renaissance and the "Counter-Reformation," he feels, though with balance and wisdom, the drama of two worlds in conflict. His historiographical works Istoria veneziana (Venice 1605), Storia della guerra di Cipro (ibid. 1605), as well as other writings (Lettere inedite, edited by G. Biadego, Verona 1885 and La legazione di Roma, 3 vols., ibid. 1886-87) reveal and complete his personality as a shrewd politician, intent with conscious perspicacity on illustrating the forces that move the life of states, even if his filial affection for the Venetian "fatherland" cannot overcome a certain panegyrical tone toward the Serenissima, whose government appears in P.'s eyes as the apex of technical-political perfection.
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1837 he governed the diocese as capitular vicar and distinguished himself by his courageous assistance to cholera victims; in 1838 he left teaching to devote himself to preaching, study, and poetry; in 1847-48 he wrote patriotic verses, for which the Bourbon police marked him among the "persons of interest."
Sensitive, nervous, melancholy, a facile improviser, he was a poet by nature. His intimate drama, atoned for by a sincere love of God and neighbor, was translated into deliberately simple song, not only to educate the people, but to comfort the poor. This "village poet" (De Sanctis) loved Virgil, translated Hugo, Lamartine, Shakespeare, Moore, Byron, Goethe, Klopstock, Bürger, Körner, and had a special fondness for Uhland. Cultured and a friend of cultured men, a preacher and admired panegyrist (though verbose), his horizon is not limited to the village; yet only when he identifies himself with the sorrow and faith of the humble does he sketch real types (Il vecchio sergente, Il curato, La cieca) and give a wholly personal naivety to his lyric poetry, which deserves consideration among the popular and religious poetry of the nineteenth century.
Works: Armonie italiane (Naples 1841); Canzoni popolari (ibid. 1841); Canti del Viggianese (ibid. 1846); Canti del povero (ibid. 1852); Poesie edite ed inedite (ibid. 1856-57); Opere complete (Lenten sermons, panegyrics, memoirs: Ariano di Puglia 1889-98); Giulietta e Romeo, tragedy published under the editorship of C. De Vivo (Ariano 1910); Ituriele, short poem published by C. Villani (Naples 1910); Sordello, tragedy ed. by C. De Vivo (Avellino 1911); Poesie e prose, anthology edited by C. De Vivo (Naples 1913); All'abbazia di S. Spirito e altri inediti in the vol. by F. Lo Parco: Attraverso gli Abruzzi (ibid. 1913); Canti educativi inediti e dispersi, edited by F. Lo Parco (ibid. 1921).
Bibliography9 works
Maria Sticco