Den Danske Mercurius

Den danske Mercurius was a Danish newspaper, first published on 1 August 1666, by Anders Bording.

He founded his versified newspaper, published in Danish with the title Den Danske Mercurius.

It contained domestic and international news written in Alexandrine verse style, accompanied by reasoning in the form of small poems.

Regarding the messages from Denmark itself, news from the Royal Danish court took up the most space, but many other news topics were mentioned too, e.g. the arrival of foreign diplomats, appointments, meteorological phenomena and fires.

The name of the newspaper, Mercurius, referred to the messenger of the gods in Greek and Roman mythology, and had already been used for foreign newspapers, (e.g. the Mercure Francais from 1605), but in its form the Danish newspaper was an imitation of the versed La muze historique, which Jean Loret wrote for mademoiselle de Longueville, later the Duchess of Nemours, from 1650.