Аннотация:Between 1571 and 1597, Francesco Marcaldi transcribed nine short accounts of foreign and Italian states, presenting them to diplomats, clerics, soldiers, and other individuals throughout Italy. Well over a hundred copies, mostly in his own hand, can be identified. Little is known about the man; he moved between many cities, from Turin, Milan, and Venice to as far south as Naples, and he may have been a secretary. This article considers the kind of information that Marcaldi purveyed, much of it derived from Venetian relazioni, and to whom and how he published it, using personalized letters of transmission rather than dedicatory letters associated with all copies of a work. His gifts were intended to please for their form as well as for their content, and bindings of good quality were used for copies destined for those of high rank.
