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. There was no reasonably functioning postal system in the Middle Ages, as there had been in ancient Rome. However, when Maximilian made Innsbruck his residence in 1490, he needed the most efficient communication possible within his large empire, which stretched from the Netherlands via Augsburg and Regensburg to Vienna. To this end, he engaged the Compania de Tassis who set up their own permanent relay line with infrastructure and personnel for the emperor. The first postal centre of the modern era in Europe had become the royal seat of Innsbruck. The brothers Janetto, Francesco and Giovanni Battista de Tassis, in German Franz and Johann Baptist von Taxis, were appointed imperial postmasters by Maximilian I. Stations were set up at intervals of 20 - 40 kilometres, so-called PostsThe first of these was set up as a relay service, on which messengers and horses alternated in order to shorten the delivery times for messages. As the Habsburg Empire grew, the demands on the relay service also increased. The network had to reach from Spain to Hungary, from Milan to Brussels. The members of the Taxis family were just as widely spread across Europe as the individual posts.

A few years after Maximilian's death, the Taxis' courier service was also opened up to private mail. On the one hand, this enabled the emperor to reduce the costs of his service, and on the other, it allowed him to spy on other participants in the postal system. In the post offices there were Black chambersin which suspicious letters were opened.

The family's reputation and fortune grew with the task. They had become the operators of the Imperial Post Office and controlled communications in Europe. From 1650, the family called itself Thurn und Taxis. Nothing remained of the old Tasso, or badger.

When the Heilige Römische Reich When the Thurn und Taxis were dissolved in 1806, they were able to claim the postal service for themselves in some German principalities, but things slowly went downhill for their service. The service was increasingly monopolised by the state. 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 between Trento and Lemberg in the same look and feel.

Until 1969, the Old Post Officewhich at times was also owned by the Thurn und Taxis family. After the First World War, they lost their aristocratic privilege. However, many of the castles, estates and palaces throughout Europe are still owned by the family today. Looking at shipping and courier services today, it is clear that the state-monopolised postal service was only a brief interlude in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, UPS, Hermes, DHL & Co characterise this economic sector. Unlike the Taxis family, however, they have to console themselves with filthy lucre and are not elevated to the nobility. The Palais Fugger-Taxis in Innsbruck is still a reminder of the emperor's postmasters.