The 20th and 21st centuries are known as the information age. The internet revolutionised almost every aspect of life. The major changes that took place around 1500 also had a lot to do with new ways of disseminating news. The production and distribution of news, information and ideas was revolutionised thanks to two innovations. The printing press made it easier to reproduce information. Around the same time, a more efficient postal system began to be established in the Holy Roman Empire. The story of the Taxis family, who organised this postal service, is an example of the development opportunities offered by the early modern period around 1500. It is closely linked to the Habsburgs and the city of Innsbruck, which for a short time under Emperor Maximilian was not only the royal seat but also the European postal centre.

The Taxis were a Lombard family from the lower nobility. As early as the 13th century, Omodeo de Tasso had set up a courier service between the major Italian cities in northern Italy. In the Middle Ages, there was no reasonably functioning, transnational postal system of the kind that had existed in ancient Rome. The growing empire under Maximilian, which stretched from the Netherlands via Augsburg and Regensburg to Vienna, needed the most efficient communication possible. To this end, he engaged the Compania de Tassis who set up their own permanent relay line for the emperor, complete with infrastructure and personnel. The brothers Janetto, Francesco and Giovanni Battista de Tassis, in German Franz and Johann Baptist von Taxis, were appointed by Maximilian I as Imperial postmasters made. The emperor wanted to utilise their experience to connect his vast empire with information technology.

At a distance of 20 - 40 km, stations, so-called PostsThe post office in Innsbruck was the first modern postal centre in the early modern period. Innsbruck became the first modern postal centre in the Habsburg Empire in the early modern period. The location at the foot of the Brenner Pass was now not only crucial for trade, but information was also exchanged along this route. The first line ran from Innsbruck to Mechelen from 1489. Soon the route between the Netherlands and Italy was known as the German route bekannt. Mit der Post kam auch weitere Verwaltung nach Innsbruck. Die Stadt war Sammelplatz für die Hofpost, die dem Kaiser von hier aus an seinen jeweiligen Standort nachgeschickt wurde. Die Hofkanzlei sammelte in Innsbruck das Archiv mit dem Schriftverkehr und den Büchern der Kammerverwaltung. Die Nachrichten, die sogenannten Zeitungen, die zwischen den einzelnen Verfassern und Empfängern hin- und hergeschickt wurden, bedurften des Berufsstandes der Novellanten, die die Neuigkeiten er- und verfassten.

A few years after Maximilian's death, the Taxis' courier service also opened up to private mail. The Habsburg had been a defaulter and the costs had to be covered. Passenger transport was also offered as a service. On the one hand, this made it possible to reduce the costs of the service, and on the other hand, it allowed them to spy on other participants in the postal system. The postmasters also acted as a kind of secret service. The Counter-Reformation and the military used the postal service for their own purposes. In the individual post offices there were Black chambersin which suspicious letters were opened.

Mit dem Anwachsen des Habsburgerreiches nach der Expansion der Habsburger wuchs auch der Stafettendienst der Taxis. 1505 vergab Philipp I. von Spanien auch auf der iberischen Halbinsel an die bewährten Dienstleister. Nach den italienischen Eroberungen unter Karl V. kontrollierten die Habsburger auch große Teile Norditaliens. Von Spanien bis nach Ungarn, von Mailand bis Brüssel reichte das Informationsnetzwerk.

Durch die Kontrolle der europäischen Kommunikation kamen die Taxis zu Macht, Einfluss und Reichtum. Seit 1650 nannte sich das Geschlecht Thurn und Taxis. Vom alten Tasso, zu Deutsch Dachs, war nichts mehr übriggeblieben. Erst mit der Zentralisierung und dem neuen Staatsverständnis der Aufklärung des 17. Jahrhunderts begann ihr Stern zu sinken. 1769 wurde das Postregal der Familie Taxis für Vorderösterreich aufgehoben. Die Umwälzungen der Napoleonischen Kriege brachten weitere Änderungen mit sich. Als das Heilige Römische Reich When the Thurn und Taxis were dissolved in 1806, they were only able to claim the postal service for themselves in a few German principalities. The service was increasingly monopolised. Post offices became symbols of the penetration of state power in the public sphere. In 1908, the new main post office was built in Maximilianstraße in Innsbruck according to the plans of Natale Tommasi. As with railway stations, the architecture of the building was no different from other large post offices within the Habsburg Empire. Those who conducted their postal business as subjects of Emperor Franz Joseph I were to be able to do so in the same look and feel throughout the entire monarchy between Trento and Lviv.

After the First World War, the Thurn and Taxis lost their aristocratic privileges. However, many of the castles, estates and palaces throughout Europe are still owned by the family today. Until 1969, opposite the main post office was the Old Post Officewhich at times was also owned by the Thurn und Taxis family. Since the turn of the millennium, the postal service has followed in the footsteps of the Taxis family. Mail order and courier services are increasingly passing into private hands. The state-monopolised postal system of the 20th century was perhaps only a brief intermezzo. Unlike the Taxis family, however, DHL, UPS & CO have to console themselves with filthy lucre and are not elevated to the nobility. The Palais Fugger-Taxis in Innsbruck, on the other hand, is still a reminder of the emperor's postmasters.