Domenico Cecere is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the Department of Humanities of the University of Naples Federico II. His work is grounded in the political, social and cultural history of early modern Italy and of the Spanish Monarchy. Alessandro Tuccillo is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin. His research interests include the intellectual and political history of the 18th and 19th centuries, colonial slavery, and political and ecclesiastical information networks in the aftermath of disasters.

Acknowledgement 9 Domenico Cecere and Alessandro Tuccillo Times of emergency: Managing communication and politics in the aftermath of a disaster 11 Section I: Controlling the flow of news Tamar Herzog Early modern information: Collecting and knowing in Spain and its Empire 39 Fernando Bouza Calamities, communication and public space between manuscript and print (Spain and Portugal, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries): From prayers to news 59 Virginia García- Acosta Decide, apply and communicate: The colonial administration in Mexico faced with extreme weather episodes 79 Section II: From relaciones to periodicals Annachiara Monaco A linguistic perspective on the reporting of seventeenth- century natural disasters 113 Vincenzo Leonardi The rhetoric of disaster between the pre- periodical and the periodical press: The Guadalmedina flood (1661) and the case of the Gazeta Nueva 139 Valentina Sferragatta Communicative strategies in relazioni on the 1669 eruption of Mount Etna 171 Enrico De Prisco Countering the spread of contagion. Plague and the media: A close relationship, the case of Conversano (1690– 1692) 197 José Daniel Lozano Díaz and Antonio Manuel Berná Ortigosa A comparative analysis of earthquakes as reported in the official Spanish press (1770– 9): A commercial strategy? 223 Section III: The logistics of communication Guillaume Gaudin Crisis as a measure of communicative capacity in the Spanish Empire: Letters, messengers and news informing Spain of the Sangley uprising in Manila (1603– 1608) 255 Paulina Machuca The 1645 Manila earthquake: The distance- time problem during emergencies 281 Domenico Cecere Standing on shaky ground: The politics of disasters in early modern Peru 309 Rocío Moreno- Cabanillas Mechanisms and strategies for communication in time of war during the eighteenth century 341 Section IV: Putting a spin on disasters Alessandro Tuccillo Divine intervention? The politics of interpreting disasters 365 Armando Alberola Romá Disaster and personal perception: The Calabria and Messina earthquakes (1783) according to the account by the Spanish clergyman Antonio Despuig y Dameto 391 Luis Alberto Arrioja Díaz Viruell Between the brilliant light and the shadow of the insects: The instruction on the plague of locusts ordered by the Government of Guatemala in 1804 433 Index 461