ABSTRACT
The earliest printed news-sheets began to appear in Venice in 1566, in the form of letters about single events. They carried such news to all who could afford the small coin, a gazzetta, worth a fraction of an old English penny, which it cost either to buy or, more probably, to hear the story read out. 1 The cost of the product became its name – Gazzetta de la novita – the Gazette. Another term, the aviso, notice, described the same thing, a news-sheet, but referred more to the nature of the contents than to the cost of the product.
