The Postal Revolution

Juraj Kittler, Ph.D. (2009), teaches communication studies and journalism at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY, USA. The focus of his research is on the emergence of early modern information networks in the circles of late medieval Italian merchants and Renaissance diplomats.

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Archival Sources and their Abbreviations
A Note on Time and Money

Introduction: Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks
 1 Long-Distance Communications and Late Medieval Trade
 2 A Blind Spot of Economic History
 3 The Medium is the Message
 4 Mounted Cavallari and the Expanding Regional States in Italy
 5 New Approaches to Study of Renaissance Diplomacy
 6 Early Modern Diplomacy and the Postal Service
 7 The Perspective of Communications History
  7.1 The Debate about Postal Primacy
  7.2 The Emergence of Common Carriers
 8 Postal Developments and Primary Sources
 9 A Note on the Terminology

Part 1: The Pedestrian Merchant Scarsella

1 Champagne Fairs and the Earliest Documented Commercial Couriers
 1 Wool Trade as the Catalyst of Banking and Courier Operations
 2 A Predictable Pattern of the Fairs
 3 The Cyclical Movement of Couriers
 4 The Earliest Known Postal Regulation
 5 From Letters of Exchange to the Exchange of Letters
 6 Paper as a Material Precondition of Commercial Revolution
 7 The Value of Commercial Information
 8 The Papal Court as a Natural Postal Hub
 9 The Medieval Usance and Postal Operations
 10 Champagne as a Postal and Banking Clearinghouse
 11 The Decline of Champagne and the Ascension of Bruges

2 The Golden Age of the Scarsella
 1 The Charter of the Scarsella Florence-Avignon (1357)
 2 Pivotal Role of the Datini Archives in Prato
 3 The Postal System of the Late Middle Ages
 4 Regularity of the Service
 5 Innkeepers as the Earliest Postal Entrepreneurs
 6 Providing Courier Services for the Papal Court
 7 The Charter of Scarsella Barcelona-Pisa (1395)
 8 The Advices of Shipment
 9 A Medieval Address and Local Mail Distribution
 10 Strategies to Expedite the Delivery
 11 The Diminishing Cost of Commercial Mail
 12 The Rise of Independent Procacci

3 The Medieval State and Its Surveillance Mechanism – the Office of the Bollette
 1 Surveilling Complex State Territory
 2 Monitoring the Movement of Couriers in Bologna
 3 Censoring Newsletters and Satirical Pamphlets
 4 The Earliest Notions of Postal Privacy
 5 Managing Their Own Troupes of Couriers

Part 2: The Introduction of Horses into Postal Operations

4 The Visconti and Sforza Regimes in Milan and the Age of the Postal Horse
 1 The Earliest Documented Cavallari
 2 Introduction of Mounted Postal Relays by the Visconti
 3 The Benchmarks of Early Postal Efficiency
 4 Evolving Postal Jargon and Pictograms
 5 Postal Stations and Their Geostrategic Value
 6 The Princely Postal System under the Sforza
 7 Social Status of the Milanese Cavallari
 8 A Struggle to Secure the Funding
 9 Building Postal Infrastructure
 10 Communications and Timekeeping
 11 River Crossings and Fluvial Travel
 12 Expanding the Network beyond State Boundaries
 13 The Postal Connection with Medici Florence

5 Expanding the Interstate Mounted Postal Network
 1 The Overall Cost of the Sforza System
 2 Naval Bridge between Naples and Gaeta
 3 Ducal Inspector Reports on the State of the Network
 4 The Growing Pains Endure
 5 Only for the Privileged Few

6 Other Italian and European States Establish Their Own Mounted Posts
 1 The Military Roots of the Term ‘Post’
 2 The First Mounted Lines beyond the Boundaries of Italy
 3 The Difference between Cavalcata and Staffetta
 4 The Mounted Courier’s Attire

Part 3: The Postal Era Reaches Its Full Maturity

7 The Company of Venetian Couriers
 1 The Genesis of Venetian Courier Network
 2 The Most Lucrative Postal Route of Renaissance Europe
 3 The Relationship between the Guild and Its Maestro in Venice
 4 The Guild’s Headquarters in the Rialto
 5 Postal Infrastructure along via Flaminia
 6 State Subsidies and the Cost of a Single Journey
 7 The Postmasters of the Venetian Guild in Rome
 8 The Landmark Postal Legislation of 1541
 9 Affinity between Banking and Postal Operations
 10 Our Exquisite House in Rome
 11 The Earning Power of a Venetian Courier
 12 Synergy with the Post of Constantinople
 13 Other Regional and Interstate Postal Lines

8 Postal Wars and the Rise of State Postal Monopolies
 1 A Deeply Rooted Mutual Distrust
 2 Testing the Enemy’s Resolve: Battles over Postal Lines with Bologna and Ancona
 3 The Insistence on Postal Reciprocity by Pius V (1566–1572)
 4 A Series of Senseless Retaliations
 5 Arguments for the Right to Postal Privacy
 6 Lucrative Postal Monopolies
 7 Postal Wars Continue Under Gregory XIII (1572–1585)
 8 Consolidating the State Monopoly

9 Travel by the Posts, Postal Guides, and Transport of Packages
 1 The Proliferation of Postal Guides
 2 Traveling by the Posts for Leisure
 3 Transport of Packages by the Early Postal Carriers
 4 Catering to the Rich: from Human Cargo to Luxuries
 5 A Two-Tier Postal Network
 6 Resisting Change: the Introduction of Postal Vehicles

Epilogue
Appendix
Glossary of Postal Terms
Bibliography
Index

This volume will be of particular interest to medievalists and renaissance scholars, economic historians, historians of diplomacy and state-building, communication(s) historians, scholars of legal history and international law, and stamp collectors (pre-filatelistic/pre-stamp era).