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Virgil's patron is Gaius Maecenas, who's high up in Augustus's administration. Virgil writes the Aeneid, talks up Augustus. Medici's sponsor art, get flattered

• dredmorbius 10y ago
  The use of advertising for manufactured goods or mass services required the capability to produce same. Pitching influence (as the Medici did through their art) has a very long history. The first newspaper adverts for goods were patent medicines (think, basically, Viagra of the 19th century), starting about mid-century. As the factory method came online, and it was possible to cheaply and rapidly transport goods throughout a country on rail, the problem of creating a market for those goods, as well as identification (branding) arose. Hence advertising. There's a good brief summary of that transition in Hamilton Holt's 1909 book, Commercialism and Journalism (also speaking to the problems of influence within media and journalism). In particular, the 30x growth of the periodicals business from 1850 - 1905, which Holt attributes principally to advertising (though he gives other factors: improved mail, cheaper paper, faster printing, literacy, as well). https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft