Written newspapers were a widespread news medium in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. In comparison to their printed counterparts, however, they have so far hardly been investigated in German-language research. Based on the indexing of one of the most prominent collections of such newspapers, the so-called Fugger newspapers that have come down to us in Vienna, this is the first time that the phenomenon is placed regionally and thematically in an overarching context. On the one hand, it is about what a written newspaper is and how the German newspaper and the Italian Avviso differ. On the other hand, connections between newspaper collections in the Old Kingdom and in Italy are also being examined, thus drawing the contours of an information network at the beginning of the European press development.