What is the history of communication? This conference aims to approach and discuss possible answers to this question, focusing on early modern Europe (1400-1800). While being a forum for discussing recent and on-going research on this broad topic, the conference highlights especially approaches and trends within German and Italian historiography. Although there is as yet no chair for the history of communication either in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, or Italy (‚Storia della comunicazione' – ‚Kommunikationsgeschichte'), communication history is a well established field of research within historiography. In fact, an early modern history of communication remains to be written: the scope and limits of a communicational approach to historiography are still unclear and under-theorized. Some aspects of communication history have been addressed fruitfully, both on an empirical and theoretical level. These components derive from different historiographical backgrounds and schools of thought, for example ranging from narrow perspectives on certain forms of media only (e.g. on speeches, newspapers or books) to wider examinations into the intermediality of the communication landscape, or from the 'public' dimension of certain acts of communication to the accompanying non-public or clandestine aspects. By adopting a wide understanding of 'communication' this conference sets out to evaluate the scope, concepts, and approaches of an inclusive history of (early modern) communication.