A ground-breaking reassessment of the status of information in early modern Europe, first published in 2007.

Introduction Francisco Bethencourt and Florike Egmond; Part I. Networks and Markets of Information: 1. From merchants' letters to handwritten avvisi. Notes on the origins of public information Mario Infelise; 2. Handwritten newsletters as means of communication in Europe Renate Pieper and Zsuzsa Barbarics; 3. Merchant letters across geographical and social boundaries Francesca Trivellato; 4. Correspondence and natural history in the sixteenth century: cultures of exchange in the circle of Carolus Clusius Florike Egmond; Part II. Uses and Meanings of Correspondence: Artists, Patrons, Collectors: 5. Letters and portraits: economy of time and chivalrous service in courtly life Fernando Bouza; 6. The letter as deferred presence: Nicolas Poussin to Paul Fréart de Chantelou. 28 April 1639 Peter Mason; 7. The role of correspondence in the transmission of collecting patterns in seventeenth-century Europe: models, media and main characters Irene Baldriga; Part III. Uses and Meanings of Correspondence: Noblemen, Peasants, Spies: 8. The political correspondence of Albuquerque and Cortés Francisco Bethencourt; 9. Spying in the Ottoman Empire: sixteenth-century encrypted correspondence Dejanirah Couto; 10. The correspondence of illiterate peasants in early modern Hungary Istvan Grigor Toth.