The first _____ instance of its use, he says, occurred in a letter written by a Florentine merchant on May 4, 1536.

The universal symbol of the Internet era communications, the @ sign used in e-mail addresses to signify the word 'at', is a 500-year-old invention of _____ merchants, a Rome academic has revealed.

Giorgio Stabile, a science professor at La Sapienza University, claims to have stumbled on the earliest known example of the symbol's use, as a(n) _____ of a measure of weight or volume.

The sign made its way along trade routes to northern Europe, where it came to represent '_____ the price of', its contemporary accountancy meaning.

The race is on between the mercantile world and the banking world to see who has the _____ documentation of @.

The oldest example could be of great value. It could be used _____ publicity purposes and to enhance the prestige of the institution that owned it, he says.

Professor Stabile believes that Italian banks may possess even earlier documents _____ the symbol lying forgotten in their archives.

The professor unearthed the ancient symbol in the course of research for a visual _____ of the 20th century, to be published by the Treccani Encyclopedia.

Giorgio Stabile claims to have uncovered a symbol used to represent an _____ based on the terracotta jars used to transport grain and liquid in the ancient Mediterranean world.

The earliest known example of the @ sign was found in a letter written by a _____ merchant on May 4, 1536.