The shifting system of alliances in Italy depended on obtaining accurate information about those who were alternately enemies and friends. The Italian city-states initially relied on merchants and bankers traveling or living in other cities to pass along information, but in the fifteenth century they began to send out permanent representatives whose functions were to send back a constant stream of foreign news and win the loyalty of important people. These representatives created modern diplomacy: they established permanent embassies, which gradually came to be understood as islands of foreign sovereignty; they kept extensive records; they made both open and secret alliances.