Abstract

This contribution discusses the vital role of paper in the context of an early modern Mediterranean island-state. From a commerical, but also from a political perspective, the increased amount of seaborne communication not only characterised statehood but indeed made it possible. Paper-based communication was the main channel of formal but also of informal communication, with the latter comprising the exchange of news, rumours, and hearsay between the geographically isolated community and the rest of the Mediterranean and beyond. Such paper transactions comprised manuscript but also increasingly printed genres. The role of these and of other typologies of printed commercial literature went beyond a purely utilitarian one, as very often such forms included decorative iconographical representations asserting either political sovreignity or religious power. Paper-based communication enabled such an island community not simply to receive news but also to be a net distributer of it.

Highlights

  • The increasing availability of paper and its use as a medium for written and visual communication, whether in manuscript or printed format, together with the processes through which this transformed commerce and the communication of news in early modern Europe, has been the focus of a number of studies at both the macro and micro levels

  • The evolving, interdependent and intricate nature of the relationship between paper, manuscript and print was to prove of paramount importance in the evolution, among other things, of modern European commercial and business transactions, structures and networks, as well as in the dissemination and availability of news both as a political tool in the hands of the rising state and for the formation of public opinion when it percolated beyond the strictly political confines.[1]

  • The aim of this paper is to provide a case study of the interplay between paper, commerce and the dissemination of news – the latter in various typologies and through different media

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Summary

Introduction

The increasing availability of paper and its use as a medium for written and visual communication, whether in manuscript or printed format, together with the processes through which this transformed commerce and the communication of news in early modern Europe, has been the focus of a number of studies at both the macro and micro levels. The aim of this paper is to provide a case study of the interplay between paper, commerce and the dissemination of news – the latter in various typologies and through different media In other words, it concentrates on the transformative power of this relationship within a specific peripheral European, geographical, political and cultural entity; one which aptly fits into Braudel’s category of ‘isolated worlds.’[2] Early modern Mediterranean islands often remained archaic in practically every aspect, unless and until what Braudel described as ‘some accidental change of ruler or of fortune’ took place, resulting in a sometimes short-lived, sometimes long-term, if not permanently maintained political, commercial and cultural integration with mainland Europe. The extent to which these processes of ‘opening up’ the island, as it were, depended upon a dramatic increase in the presence of paper and in its utilisation for business transactions and the communication of news, while not unique to early modern Malta, is certainly worth exploring

Paper and the Expansion of Print Culture in Hospitaller Malta
Description Polize di cambio mercantili
The Printing Press
Cambiali Cambiali Cambiali Cambiali
Conclusion
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