“The Pen is so Noble and Excellent an Instrument”: How the Medieval Merchants and Renaissance Diplomats Invented the Newswriting Style

ABSTRACT

This essay argues that the modern newswriting tradition can be traced back to the networks of Italian medieval merchants and Renaissance diplomats. As of the late 1200s, merchant letters reveal an increasing tendency to report important political and military events for the sake of business interests. The emergence of permanent embassies in Italy in the mid-1400s gave a further impetus to the development of newswriting techniques, since one of the pivotal tasks of the Renaissance ambassadors was to keep their superiors informed about evolving situations in the foreign courts. As a result, both merchants and diplomats had to break with the rigid medieval letter-writing tradition in order to develop new rhetorical strategies capable of capturing the complex realities they observed. This study analyzes some of the key elements of this emerging reporting style such as the dateline, the lead, basic story structures, but also the early notions of objectivity that in their own way fostered the techniques capable of conveying direct speech. In conclusion, this essay points out several manuals for Renaissance diplomats and their secretaries that already clearly formulated the six journalistic Ws and also pondered the ability of news-writers to manipulate their audiences.

KEYWORDS:

• History of journalism
• newswriting style
• reporting techniques
• editorial practices
• medieval merchants
• Renaissance diplomacy

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The original letters are in The National Archives (TNA) in Kew, UK, in two separate folders: E 101/601/5 and SC 1/58.

2 Archivio di Stato di Prato (ASPto) – Fondo Datini, busta 550, inserto 16, codice 307781 and busta 881, inserto 13, codice 517104; cf. Federico Melis, Documenti per la storia economica dei secoli XIII–XIV (Firenze: Leo Olschki, 1972), 30–31.

3 Donald E. Queller, The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 89; cf. Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASVe), Senato, filza XXX, f. 52v (62v).

4 ASVe, Avvisi, bb. 6 and 7.

5 ASVe, Avvisi, b. 7, ff. 58r, 59r, 130r, and 266r.

6 ASVe, Avvisi, b. 7, f. 80r.

7 TNA, PRO 31/14/82, Marco Minio, letter no. 449 – dated Rome, 26 January 1520, ff. 612–613.

8 Morosini, Il Codice, 64.340–340bis, p. 646.

9 ASVe, Senato, Secreta, Dispacci dei Ambasciatori, Milano, filza 3, f. 269r.

10 For an early iteration of this type see ASVe, Avvisi, b. 7, f. 12r; for a later iteration see ASVe, Senato, Secreta, Dispacci dei Ambasciatori, Milano, Filza 3, ff. 6v and 153r.

11 Villani, Cronaca, 9.LXIV, p. 611; 12.XCVII, p. 1360; 13.LXXXIV, p. 1578.

12 ASPto, Fondo Datini, busta 550, inserto 16, codice 307781 – Venezia-Pisa, 1 August 1401; cf. b. 881, inserto 13, codice 517104 – Genoa-Barcelona, 20 February 1401. Cf. Melis, Documenti per la storia, 30–31.

13 Gigi Corazzol, Dispacci di Zaccaria Barbaro (Napoli: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 1994),196, letter no. 93 – Naples-Venice, 10 March 1472.

14 For example, compare Girolamo Donà, Dispacci da Roma, 1510, ed. Viola Venturini (Venezia: La Malcontenta, 2009) with the originals in ASVe, Senato, Secreta, Archivi Proprii degli Ambasciadori, Roma – Filza 3.

15 A Senate decree adopted on 13 July 1478 – Senato, Secreta, filza XXVIII, f. 104v (115v); cf. Queller, Early Venetian Legislation, 116.

16 ASVe, Notai di Candia, busta 2, avvisi; cf. George T. Dennis, “Three Reports from Crete on the Situation in Romania, 1401–1402,” Studi veneziani, no. 12 (1970): 243–65.

17 Morosini, Il Codice, 63.85–86, pp. 239–242.

18 Bible, Genesis 2.17;

19 Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF), Archivio Mediceo del Principato, Roma, Avvisi, filza 4025, ff. 466v-469r; ASF, Archivio Mediceo del Principato, Venezia, Avvisi, filza 3080, ff. 125r–128r and 129r–140r.

20 ASF, Archivio Mediceo del Principato, Roma, Avvisi, filza 4025, ff. 466v–469r.

21 Ibid., f. 469r.

22 Morosini, Il Codice, 65.1011–16, pp. 1341–1345.

23 Morosini, Il Codice, 65.1013, p. 1343.

24 Morosini, Il Codice, 65.1015–16, p. 1344.

25 Ibid., 65.1057, p. 1359.

26 Ibid., 65.1161, p. 1391.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a series of faculty development grants provided by St. Lawrence University.