The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself (21 page)

In these despatches political news was generally mixed with instructions and information about essential commercial transactions. The emergence of the manuscript newsletter as a separate entity took a step forward through the initiatives of two well-connected Italians, Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti and Benedetto Dei. The two men, who developed a close friendship towards the end of Dei's life, had arrived at their vocation as purveyors of news through rather different routes. For Arienti, his interest in news was almost an
accidental by-product of the conventional search for patronage through literary endeavour. In the course of this literary life he moved into the circle of Ercole d'Este, Duke of Ferrara; Arienti would later be a valued correspondent of Ercole's daughter, Isabella, after her marriage to Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua.
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Both appreciated his regular and extensive compilations of news. Based in Bologna, Arienti was well placed to cull news from travellers on the road to Florence and Rome. He also maintained an extensive web of correspondents. One of these was the indefatigable Benedetto Dei. Dei's activities as a news correspondent were the culmination of an eventful life that had taken him to France, England and Germany, and had involved extensive travels in Asia and Africa. He returned to Florence in 1468 after several years’ residence in Constantinople. Clubbable and gregarious, Dei used the web of connections developed during these years to build an unrivalled reputation as a source of news. Between 1470 and 1480 he adopted the practice of issuing regular bulletins which, for the first time, deviated from the customary epistolary style to create a new form of writing. One surviving letter, from 1478, offers fifty short items. Each is a single sentence with a dateline indicating the source of the report:

Dei's correspondence with Arienti offers numerous examples of how his news was gathered. Arienti frequently forwarded mail to Dei from Bologna, re-directing it to the Medici bank in Florence where Dei received correspondence. Much of Dei's detailed information from France came from Medici contacts, particularly Francesco Sassetti of the Medici bank in Lyon.
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Spanish news came from merchants resident in Florence. Dei traded particularly on his unrivalled contacts in the Ottoman Empire and at the court of the Sultan of Egypt; he boasted of his ability to send regularly every Saturday ‘the news from Asia and from Africa and from Europe always’. This was a very significant remark, for it indicates that Dei was the first to conceive of his news bulletins as a weekly service. Whereas Arienti, in the medieval and Renaissance fashion, hoped to curry princely favour through his news digests, Dei expected and received regular payments for his bulletins. In the last years of his life Dei held a unique position at the centre of a web of news gathering. A letter from
an admiring correspondent in Cortona in 1490 assured him that his letters were eagerly awaited: as soon as they arrived they were immediately copied many times over.
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It is clear from this that Dei had not yet developed the most effective commercial model. To maximise income the news correspondent had to supervise personally the processes of replication and distribution. In the next few decades the
avviso
gradually developed into its mature form. The
avvisi
of the sixteenth century generally consisted of one or two sheets of paper folded once, to make the equivalent of a quarto pamphlet of four or eight pages. These were filled with a sequence of reports, each consisting of a short paragraph of two or three sentences. They began in the style that Dei had pioneered with a dateline: ‘News from Venice, 24 March 1570'; ‘In a letter from Constantinople it is reported’. The paragraph then summarised the news reported from that place. So under ‘news from Rome’ would be listed all the news emanating from Roman sources, even if it related to places far away. It would be followed by news gathered from Venice, France, Constantinople, from the Low Countries and England. This style of presentation was maintained largely unchanged in manuscript news services into the eighteenth century; it also proved deeply influential in shaping the first printed news serials. The newspapers of the early seventeenth century would in this respect owe far more to the conventions and news values of the
avvisi
than to the very different style of the printed news pamphlets.

The places from which news was gathered were a largely unvarying list of key news hubs: in the case of transalpine locations, generally major commercial centres well served by the continental postal services. The tradition was that the news should be transmitted in crisp sentences with little by way of commentary or analysis. The emphasis was on providing the maximum information; the merchants and members of the governing classes who were the major clients of the
novellanti
could draw their own conclusions. Thus the
avvisi
were very different from diplomatic despatches, where the information supplied would be shaped by the known political priorities of the ambassador's home state. The
avvisi
, in contrast, affected an air of studied neutrality. Although this could sometimes be deceiving, it did permit commercial newsmen to develop a wide circle of clients among the leaders of Italy's often feuding states. The
avvisi
were neither tailored to nor adapted for individual clients. In the newsletters supplied to the Duke of Urbino from Rome after 1565 he would regularly receive news of his own activities – at least as they were reported in the eternal city.
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A further unvarying convention was that the newsletters were unsigned. This may seem rather odd to us, since the
novellanti
certainly wished to
advertise their skills and broaden the circle of their clients. The best, like Poli and the Venetians Hieronimo Acconzaicco and Pompeo Roma, became well-known figures. The tradition of anonymity has more to do with a conscious attempt to differentiate between fact, as reported, and opinion. Unverified reports were clearly indicated as such: ‘it is said …’; ‘it is reported from Lyon’.

The two major drivers in the development of commercial news agencies were Rome and Venice. It is not difficult to see why these cities were so influential. Venice was the commercial metropolis of the region, with the most highly developed diplomatic networks, territories and trade in the eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. Since Venice was also a nodal point in European postal and diplomatic communications, the well informed could rely on hearing news from Paris, Lyon, Brussels and Spain, as well as from the imperial capitals of Vienna and Innsbruck. The Rialto was Europe's premier hub of commercial information exchange and gossip. When Salanio initiated a conversation in
The Merchant of Venice
with the greeting, ‘Now, what news on the Rialto?’, Shakespeare could expect a knowing chuckle from London playgoers.
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Rome for its part was the critical centre of political and ecclesiastical power. The need for papal approval of benefices made Rome a constant place of intrigue and the destination of numerous diplomatic missions. The continual inflow of Church revenues also made it a major centre of banking: a survey of 1550 enumerated fifty-one banking firms active in the city.
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In the second half of the sixteenth century an activist papacy, energetically promoting war against the Turk and Protestant heretics, commanded the attention of all Europe.

The different character of the two cities was reflected in a palpably different tone of the news reports circulated by their respective
novellanti
. In Rome the
avvisi
tended to be more gossipy, offering detailed reports of the manoeuvres of the Curia and ambitious cardinals. The most sophisticated news writers even attempted to develop a two-tier news service, distinguishing an ordinary bulletin from a premium service of confidential news for favoured clients. This was all well and good so long as the two did not get confused, as was the case with one Roman news writer whose secret sheet critical of the papal household was soon in the hands of the Pope. The odd mishap apart, the Roman
novellanti
were happy to cultivate a reputation for being able to penetrate the most secret counsels of this city of schemes. A newly appointed aide to the court of one cardinal was strictly enjoined to have no contact with the news writers. They could, he was warned, ‘take the egg out of a chicken's body, let along the secret out of a youth's mouth’.
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As can be seen from these two examples, although Italian news writers provided what was increasingly regarded as an indispensable service, they were
not universally well regarded. In the second half of the sixteenth century successive popes took strong action to set limits to their activities. In 1570 Pius V announced that he would energetically pursue the authors of defamatory broadsheets. Soon after this the writer Niccolò Franco was arrested, tried and executed. In 1572 an edict was promulgated against
avvisi
:

The prohibitions were renewed by an edict of Sixtus V in 1586, and these years saw sporadic efforts to see them enforced. In 1581 one writer was given a life sentence for allegedly spreading rumours of the Pope's health. In 1587 a man described as the ‘head of a sect of gazetteers’ was executed for leaking confidential information. The actions against the news writers seem to have been particularly severe in Rome because their activities became conflated in the popes’ minds with the scurrilous writings of those who posted around the city the libellous satirical verses known as pasquinades. These were unrestrained and wilfully defamatory hits at those in power. Because they were posted up anonymously (many on the ancient statue nicknamed ‘Pasquino’, from which the name is derived), their authors were seldom discovered.
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The authors of the news-sheets, many of whom ran a large scribal office employing numerous clerks, were easier targets.

Although many of the pasquinades were bitingly topical, the confusion of the two forms was unfair. The
avvisi
could be cynical, but with rare exceptions were not openly offensive. Their value lay in their reliability as news; the writers could not exaggerate for effect, nor indulge in wishful thinking. In the clear distance between the
avvisi
and polemical writing lay their marketability. They would demonstrate their maturity as a news form during the Armada campaign of 1588, when they remained calmly sceptical of early reports of a Spanish victory, a victory that was of course fervently desired in Rome.
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The fiercest antagonism to the news writers tended to be at times when those in authority had an interest in preventing news circulating, often of course when it was bad.

In time, the intermittent threat of retributive action did have its effect on the tone of
avvisi
. The Roman
avvisi
became more monotonous, and certainly more cautious, with the passing of years.
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For all that, they remained an absolutely essential part of the news network for those in official positions, and
increasingly for a wider public as well. A highly suggestive edict of 1590 prohibited preachers from referring to newsletters in their sermons, the clear inference being that the city clergy were among their readers.
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The manuscript news-books continued to be the dominant form of news publication in Italy throughout the seventeenth century, long after the arrival of newspapers. Venetian merchants still relied on the
avvisi
for information likely to move the sensitive financial markets. In Rome,
avvisi
played a crucial role in the rampant betting market.
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But whereas in the sixteenth century
avvisi
had been at the forefront of news culture, in the seventeenth century this became less and less the case. An admirer of Rome in 1637 could still boast that ‘this was the place where all of the news of the world is found’. But a perusal of the
avvisi
would have told him that this was no longer the case. The world was moving on. The focus of events and the shapers of Europe's politics were now to be found in the north – as was the gravitational pull of Europe's news culture.

The Fugger Newsletter

The steady growth of a commercial news market in Italy could not go un--noticed north of the Alps. Given the close business ties between Germany, the Netherlands and the Italian Peninsula, it was inevitable that the manuscript newsletters would soon be in demand elsewhere. At first, German clients simply availed themselves of the services of the established Roman, and particularly Venetian,
novellanti
. But by the last quarter of the sixteenth century professional news agencies were becoming a feature of the northern news market as well. These were situated, first and foremost, in the leading commercial centres, Antwerp, Cologne and especially Augsburg. The south German city enjoyed a unique position, a major commercial metropolis that was also a principal hub of the northern European information network. Augsburg was the junction of the postal service between Venice and northern Europe, and between the imperial capitals of Vienna and Brussels: it was the only one of the major German cities to be an integral part of the imperial postal route.
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