An Avizi was a handwritten letter, just words on a piece of paper, produced by special companies in early modern era Venice.

Aviso is an Italian word that roughly translates to something like notice or announcement or warning,

and a vizzi were letters delivered to a list of customers,

generally containing announcements or warnings or similar information of some kind.

So back when Venice was ruled by what amounted to merchant kings and merchant families,

and just after the apex of their height of power and influence,

from around 1500 until 1700 AD,

there were companies that collected information about war, politics, the dealings of leaders and

top merchants, and other aspects of what we might broadly consider to be current events at the time

in places connected to the Venetian economy. Avizi actually originated in the Roman Empire,

as public notices that were also called Acta Dierna,

which were carved into metal or stone, posted in plain view at set locations, so that normal

people would know what was expected of them, which wars were currently being fought, and other

things of that nature. Private Avizi also existed at that time, allowing higher-ups to essentially communicate amongst

themselves, staying informed at a level the normal person could not expect to access at that time.

And the later monetized Venetian model was an updated version of that, allowing not just governors

and generals to have that increased sprawling

situational awareness, but relatively normal merchants of all shapes and sizes as well. Similar notices

for society's upper classes existed in China during the late Han Dynasty, so the second and

third centuries AD, in the so-called debaou, which translates as

reports from the official residences, shared information about political happenings,

news about markets and warfare, and were limited to the political class, though there were

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