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General news from Europe sent to Barcelona by the Correo de France

Date
1686
Archive
Municipal Archive of Barcelona
Document type
Textual
Reference code
CAT-AHCB-Prepremsa-3
Link to the online document
Description

The first press with the intention of being a periodical appeared in Barcelona in 1641, but its periodicity was definitively consolidated from 1683 with the outbreak of the Great Turkish War. Interest in this type of publication increased even more from 1686, following the Catalan participation in the siege that the imperial army laid on the Hungarian city of Buda. The number presented here explicitly refers to this siege. The 17th-18th century Press collection of the AHCB Newspaper Library contains the origins and early development of the press in Catalonia, from the appearance of weekly newspapers to the freedom of the press (17th and 18th centuries). It is made up of pamphlets printed in the 16th and 17th centuries with news reports or the story of a single event, sent from various parts of Europe by mail and which were very popular among Barcelona residents. These brochures arrived in our city through the various postal mail routes (from Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, etc.). Printers tried to make them attractive for sale by illustrating them with engravings. With no fixed periodicity, they are considered the origins of the Barcelona press.