Communication in the Past

Breaking resistance from within - In 1509, the German emperor besieged Venice. But when the Venetians proofed to be much more resilient than he thought Maximilian came up with a clever trick. To turn his siege into a lasting success he tried to win the hearts of the people. He hoped that this would break Italian resistance from within. And to win the hearts of the people, the ruler thought of a very unusual but extremely innovative way to communicate with those behind enemy lines. Listen to his unbelievable - yet true - story.

He was an astronomer who observed that the planets did not move around the earth like everyone believed at the time. Instead he saw something different. The planets were all circulating around the sun and so the sun had to be the centre of the universe. But communicating such knowledge was extremely dangerous in the sixteenth century.

Ridiculed by his colleagues, he was a man with an important agenda. And to achieve his goals he deliberately provoked conflict.

Today communication as one of the most important skills . And this was also true for the early modern period – the period which started with Gutenberg’s great invention and which saw ideas spread faster than ever before. In this podcast you will hear fascinating stories of people who tried to communicate effectively. But not everyone succeeded.