Masters of the post : Northern Italy and European communications networks, 1530-1730
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Masters of the Post demonstrates how the postal systems of Northern Italy contributed technology, personnel, and an ethical framework to the formation of the first global communications systems. The Tassis family and other residents of a single Alpine valley wielded disproportionate power as the agents of private and public correspondence. This dynasty of postmasters and postmistresses rose to Imperial titles as the House of Thurn und Taxis, but also served the Papacy, Venetian republic, and Spanish monarchy. Using archives in Italy, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom, I retrace the systems that carried the correspondence of the early modern world. Scholarship on early modern communications has emphasized the technological improvements brought by postal waystations and roads. I reintroduce agents of infrastructure, exploring how the professionalization of mail carrying fit into a burgeoning bureaucracy and changing notions of public service. From diplomatic espionage to attacks on couriers, control over the mail saw the early modern state articulating new powers of surveillance, policing, and information security. Even the apparent failures of these efforts provide key insights into shifting expectations of the state in society, and the highly contingent development of a state postal system. Masters of the Post advances scholarship on the history of early modern commerce and statecraft. The postmaster was one of many quasi-state actors who traded in "intelligencing, " or the handling of politically sensitive information. While a confidante for princes, the postmaster was nonetheless frequently suspected of being a spy. Professional necessity drove the representation of state agents as impartial public servants. From the diplomatic fallout resulting from the 1556 political imprisonment of the Tassis postmaster in Rome, to the 1619 audit of the Tassis postmistress of Milan, accused of serving powerful Genoese businessmen before the state, the distinction between private and public interest was in constant negotiation. Consequently, professionalization of the postmaster adds important nuance to traditional models of bureaucratization in early modern Europe.The real and imagined worlds of long-distance communication overlapped, interacted, and diverged in literature and cartography. The public accessibility of the post raised new concerns about its potential for radical social impact. Like the mailbag, postal coaches, roads, and inns provided new settings for cross-cultural encounter. I turn to dictionaries, guidebooks, journals and other popular works to demonstrate how postal systems shaped commerce, communication, and tourism. Modern travelers and correspondent brought high expectation to postal systems as a utility that mediated between state power and commercial society. By following postal development into the eighteenth century, I demonstrate the reinvention of postal history as domestic infrastructural achievement and the Tassis as nonpartisan patrons
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2020; ©2020 |
| Publication date | 2020; 2020 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Midura, Rachel Clare |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Findlen, Paula |
| Thesis advisor | Findlen, Paula |
| Thesis advisor | Como, David R, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Stokes, Laura, 1974- |
| Thesis advisor | De Vivo, Filippo |
| Degree committee member | Como, David R, 1970- |
| Degree committee member | Stokes, Laura, 1974- |
| Degree committee member | De Vivo, Filippo |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of History. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Rachel Clare Midura |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of History |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2020 by Rachel Clare Midura
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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