From dealer's description: "16th Century "Venetian Merchants' Correspondence: March 5, 1580; 1/2-page letter from Gio Steene in Antwerp to Bartholomew Corsini in London. Fresh and clean on thick paper. There was no official government-run system of postal communication in England until the 17th Century. In the 16th Century trade was underway and robust within the British Isles and the continent of Europe and the merchants needed to correspond. Between 1514 and 1600, they established their own messenger service called the "Merchant Strangers' Post", employing couriers between London and the continent. In the 1980s, the auction house Robson Lowe held 2 auctions of late 16th Century correspondence to the Corsini family residing in London. This archive was the only commercial correspondence addressed to the City of London known to have survived the Great Fire of London in 1666. This item's provenance is the 9/4/1984 Robson Lowe auction. Suffice it to say that this merchant's letter is among the oldest of its kind extant today, each piece being scarce and highly-prized by collectors and historians interested in pre-governmental/unofficial postal communication and documentation of 16th Century trade."
