Ahead of the “5Ws” Model: The Art of Letters (1674) as a Communication Handbook

Abstract

Emanuele Tesauro’s treatise on The Art of Letters (1674) can be considered an underestimates underestimated modern manual of communication as it deals with epistolary techniques and informative narrative patterns, in both private and public interactions. The definition of narration as a communicative process founded on eight “circumstances” or questions causes the scholar to probe the rhetorical framework of the so called “5Ws” theory, as it became popular in the first half of the twentieth century thanks to Harold Lasswell in reference to coeval propaganda techniques. Assuming that Tesauro cannot be considered a precursor of contemporary structural models of information flow, nonetheless his work can provide a situated analysis of the necessary elements constructing reliable messages in terms of clarity, completeness and informative reliability ahead the rise of mass communication. The analysis of The Art of Letters emphasizes the author’s attention upon the principles of effective communication pursued by contemporary “gazetteers” at the time of the “printing revolution in early modern Europe”, in line with a rhetorical legacy inspiring effective communication and profitable linguistic exchanges, starting from the Aristotelian legacy and its semantic and communicative track also probed by Umberto Eco and Roland Barthes.