Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Yana Byers
Guest: Rachel Midura, author of Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cornell University Press, 2025)
Date: January 7, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores Rachel Midura’s groundbreaking study of the Tassis family and the communications transformation in early modern Europe. Midura, blending archival research and digital history, illustrates how innovations in postal systems—from infrastructure to security—shaped the political, economic, and social landscape of Europe between 1500 and 1700. The conversation brings fresh insights into the entanglement of state power, commerce, intelligence, and everyday life through the lens of early postal networks.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of the Project and Research Motivation

• Rachel Midura discusses her personal and academic journey to this topic, noting the influence of her upbringing as the daughter of an American diplomat and her early interest in cross-cultural communication.

  “I've always been really interested in how cross cultural communication works, both official and unofficial.” (03:00)

• She started in Mediterranean studies, but language constraints led her to focus on the transalpine environment and the historically significant Tassis family.

2. The Demand for Postal Services (1500-1700)

• Midura highlights how increased paper production (via innovations from North Africa) spurred bureaucratic and commercial growth, fueling needs for reliable long-distance communication.
• Both rulers (like the Habsburgs) and merchants required systematic message transmission over sprawling and non-contiguous territories.

  “There becomes quite a diverse environment of messengers as a result.” (04:13)

3. Habsburgs, Statebuilding, and the Tassis Family’s Rise

• The Habsburgs’ massive and far-flung empire necessitated complex communication—a challenge solved by enlisting the Tassis family, Italian experts who had served both the Venetians and Papacy.

  “The Habsburgs are facing this need more than any other ruler at this point...they essentially poach some of the better practitioners.” (06:01)

• The blurry line between public (state) and private (business or personal) mail, and how private mail subsidized the expensive infrastructure.

  “State mail is subsidized effectively by the carrying of private mail.” (07:21)

4. Sources and Methodology

• Midura makes use of an array of sources: not merely letters but, crucially, the bureaucratic archives of postmasters and postmistresses—records that uncover how these systems functioned day-to-day.

  “Most early modernists work with letters...we frequently tend to overlook how that correspondence actually worked, who carried it, in what conditions, at what speed, at what cost.” (07:55)

• The infrastructure, often unmentioned in letters, becomes clear in administrative documents.

5. Postal System Mechanics and Innovation

• The postal network’s defining feature: staging posts for relay riders—“the fastest way to carry mail physically” (10:11)—backed by costly stable networks and integrated with inns.
• Multiple operators (Tassis, Venetian, Papal couriers) might coexist in major cities; rates varied by speed and urgency.
• The development of the “ordinary messenger”—slower but predictable and affordable—began widening public access.
• Dangers abounded: messengers risked robbery and espionage, contending with both criminal and political threats.

  “There is an Italian proverb that to ride by post is to play with death.” (12:28)

6. Microhistory: The Arrest of Giovanni Antonio Tassis

• A riveting case where a Tassis postmaster was arrested and tortured for involvement in clandestine communication during the Italian Wars signals the precarious status of cross-border communication.
• The aftermath set precedents for international protections for postal agents, paralleling evolving diplomatic immunity.

  “This is really the last time we see that kind of harassment of a postmaster...what we’re seeing is a kind of customary protection become increasingly enforced in an international arena.” (15:44-17:29)

7. Postal Networks as Precursors to Diplomatic Corps

• State-run postal systems, first and foremost, served diplomats.
• Records from a Venetian representative in Milan show that even “ordinary” messengers could get a letter from Venice to Milan in two days—remarkable for the era and regular enough to support bureaucratic and diplomatic planning.

  “That was really a speed that was unmatched in that world.” (20:39)

8. Negotiating Allegiance and Information Security

• The Tassis, as brokers for various rulers, often found their loyalty questioned. As postal networks grew beyond the family firm model, this tension intensified, notably with religious and political divides during the Thirty Years’ War.

  “These are servants to many masters...allegiances of the postmaster or the postmistress are frequently questioned.” (21:41)

9. Major Routes and Family Rivalries: The Italian Road

• The Milan-Venice artery (the “Italian Road”) played a critical role in European information flow, divided by political rivalry but bridged by family contracts—sometimes leading to bitter feuds among Tassis cousins.

  “Both are named, confusingly, Ruggero Tassis, and they absolutely hate each other...the expectation from the rulers is that they'll just work it out and work together, and instead they go to third parties.” (24:51)

10. Digital Methods: Reconstructing Postal Networks

• Midura applied digital humanities tools to analyze archival data, reconstructing historical networks and identifying critical “choke points” where delays or censorship (such as in Brussels or Cologne) could ripple across the continent.

  “The digital technologies have helped me to see the sources in the ways that these original administrators did, which was as systems administrators.” (26:56)

11. Seventeenth-Century Evolution: Public Transportation

• Postal coaches (“diligences”) emerged, democratizing travel and communication. The infrastructure designed for mail served travelers, with postal roads as the safest routes—a boon for mobility, security, and public service.

  “By the 1650s, 1660s, you’re seeing these systems of carriages...where you could know that the postal coach would leave from a given inn at a given time, it would cost you this much...an extremely diverse group.” (29:38)

• Noted comparison to Montaigne’s comment about safety on these routes for his child illustrates the security afforded by postal infrastructure.

12. Postal System Myth and Propaganda

• Midura critiques the “domestication of the post”—the shift from a transnational security service to a symbol of state reliability and national pride, a perception intentionally crafted through propaganda.

  “That perception of the postal system is a testament to the effectiveness of a propaganda campaign...these systems...were intelligence gathering systems, become a part of domestic and particularly fiscal governance.” (32:02)

13. Postal Networks as Drivers and Products of Early Modern Change

• The book uses the postal system to explore larger themes: the expansion of bureaucracy, multinational empires, the commercial revolution, and debates about privacy and surveillance.
• Technological changes accelerated, rather than dictated, shifts in society and heightened emotional and political stakes around communication.

  “Technologies...accelerate and even aggravate change in ways that I think we experience in our own daily lives...fitting into existing tensions and culture wars, but they are adding to a more reactive environment.” (33:39)

14. Social Discipline, Surveillance, and Mobility

• Letter writing and postal services become battlegrounds for privacy and control, as rulers surveil correspondence in a climate of religious conflict and refugee displacement.

  “A lot of the transformations that I'm talking about are taking place during the Reformation years...a Great deal of social distrust...the letter and the kind of personal access that that is associated with becomes part of this contested terrain.” (35:54)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the rise of paper-fueled bureaucracy:

  “This is a world of paper. Increasingly, business is done on paper in the ways that we recognize in the modern world.” (05:09, Midura)

• On the perils of the post:

  “There is an Italian proverb that to ride by post is to play with death.” (12:28, Midura)

• On state and commercial collaboration:

  “State mail is subsidized effectively by the carrying of private mail.” (07:21, Midura)

• On speed in early modern Europe:

  “His own letters are routinely traveling between Venice and Milan within two days...that was really a speed that was unmatched.” (19:46–20:39, Midura)

• On digital history illuminating the past:

  “The digital technologies have helped me to see the sources in the ways that these original administrators did, which was as systems administrators.” (26:56, Midura)

• On the myth of the postal service:

  “That perception of the postal system is a testament to the effectiveness of a propaganda campaign...these systems...were intelligence gathering systems, become a part of domestic and particularly fiscal governance.” (32:02, Midura)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:00 – Rachel Midura’s background and how she came to the project.
• 04:13 – Paper revolution and increasing demand for communication.
• 06:01 – Habsburgs’ empire-building and the recruitment of the Tassis family.
• 07:55 – Methodology and use of postmaster archives.
• 10:11 – Mechanics of the postal system and infrastructure.
• 12:28 – Dangers faced by messengers.
• 15:44–17:29 – The arrest of Giovanni Antonio Tassis and its legal/diplomatic consequences.
• 19:46–20:39 – Speed and efficiency of early modern postal systems.
• 21:41 – Allegiances and tensions within the postal bureaucracy.
• 24:51 – Rivalry between Tassis cousins and the Italian Road.
• 26:56 – Digital methods revealing the structure of the system.
• 29:38 – Public transportation and democratization of the postal network.
• 32:02 – The domestication and propaganda of the postal system.
• 33:39 – The role of postal systems in broader societal change.
• 35:54 – Social discipline, surveillance, and the importance of letters in crisis.
• 38:45 – What’s next: Midura’s upcoming project on conspiracy and the state.

Conclusion & Forward Look

Midura’s research positions the postal system as a bridge between technology, society, and politics—a forerunner to today’s communication revolutions and the ever-present tradeoffs between privacy, surveillance, and connectivity. The Tassis family’s story, full of intrigue, innovation, and complexity, reveals the deep historical roots of information networks and state power.

In closing, Midura teases her next book: a microhistorical investigation into Venetian state security and international manhunts—a promising continuation of her focus on the hidden mechanisms of early modern power.

For more on Rachel Midura’s work and this episode, visit the New Books Network website.