The Beginnings of Commercial and Financial Journalism

Modern business newspapers provide their readers with the latest market prices. Yet few of their readers would suspect that this kind of reporting already existed in Italy in the fourteenth century. By the end of the sixteenth century different types of market information were published regularly at the important trade centres of Europe in different kinds of business newspapers: commodity price currents, foreign exchange rate currents, and money currents. Merchants bought these newspapers and sent them to their correspondents all over Europe and beyond. This shows how much importance businessmen attached to having the most recent, reliable information. This book begins with the identification of materials that have been virtually unknown until now. The authors describe the earliest known commodity price currents, foreign exchange rate currents, and money currents during the period from 1540 to 1775.