Paper, Commerce, and the Circulation of News: A Case-Study from Early Modern Malta

Abstract

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 hence 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.