Abstract

Despite being nowadays one of the principal fields of historiographical enquiry, at present we do not have an agreed definition of the history of communication. Instead, we confront a cross disciplinary domain of research in which media studies, the history of information, media history, communication research, literary studies, social and cultural history, and the history of print and written culture converge. In the last two decades, this broad area of research has seen important innovations in its approaches, defining concepts, and methodologies. The aim of this contribution is to survey the state of this discipline, shed light on the original contribution of Italian and German historiography to this fi eld of research, and finally to point towards some new methodological perspectives and possible risks in the near future of the history of early modern communication.