Postal communications

Living in a period characterized by the rapidity of information that can reach us besides by post, even by other mediums (telegraph, telephone, radio, television, computer), we can hardly imagine a time when the news was spread only by means of the letter and at the speed allowed by the transport on foot, on horseback, by coach, or sailing ships. In fact, this situation continued for many centuries until the beginning of 1800.

The need to transmit news, implies an organized system that allows the communication from place to place, and this is confirmed by the ancient historians (eg. Herodotus) which reported to us about the "postal system" of Persians, Egyptians, other peoples of antiquity. The Romans organized the "cursus publicus" and succeeded in holding together the Empire by creating and maintaining an exceptionally efficient communication system based on roads specially built. In this way, couriers on horseback, could quickly reach distant cities of the Empire, as well as the Legions, in order to take orders and news. Messengers continued to run on the tracks of those roads also in the Middle Ages and in later centuries, being the backbone of the postal system for many centuries and keeping alive the postal communications between States, men and governments.

What is a letter?

A letter is made of paper (in antiquity was made of parchment, papyrus or clay) on which anyone could write the news he wanted to communicate to someone else away.
That simple piece of paper or other material, was in the past centuries, and even today, the basic element for the transmission of news among men. It is ascertained that the exchange of information has always been, even today, one of the fundamental points of human civilization.

(Adriano Cattani, director of the Tasso Family and Postal History Museum ).