History of Sorts

On this day 400 years ago the first Dutch newspaper was published. Courante uyt Italien, Duytslandt, &c. was the first Dutch newspaper and published weekly. The paper does not reveal the name of the printer or the publisher, but based on similar papers published later, it is thought that Joris Veseler was the printer and Caspar van Hilten its editor and publisher.

It was a regular weekly publication. It can be called the first broadsheet paper, because it was issued in folio-size. Before this, news periodicals had been pamphlets in quarto-size.

The Courante appeared until about 1672 and was then merged with the Ordinarisse Middel-Weeckse Courant and the Ordinaris Dingsdaegse Courant into the Amsterdam Courant, which eventually merged with De Telegraaf in 1903.

Stanley Morison and some other authors regard the Courante as the world’s first proper newspaper. In their view, the earlier news periodicals, such as the German Relation:…