113 / 658
111
Thursday, November 10
1 6 : 3 0 – 1 8 : 0 0
of urban life. Yet, almost simultaneously the merchants in the Rialto developed their own, more-or-less regular and increasingly well established postal
connections (scarselle) with the most important commercial centers of Europe and the Middle East. It could have been several factors that in 1490 forced
both branches – cursori and scarselieri – to join forces in the Company of Venetian Couriers: (a) the increasing operating costs of the expanding service;
(b) the interconnectedness between merchant and political interests in Venice; and (c) mainly the establishment of permanent diplomatic missions in
the second half of the fifteenth century and therefore an increasing need for a regular and reliable intelligence exchange between the centers of power and
their diplomatic outposts. Based on primary archival documents, this study aims at reconstructing some fundamental social, political, economic and cultural
aspects of the early history and pre-history of the Company of Venetian Couriers: (1) its internal structure; (2) its pivotal role in constituting the backbone
of the early information networks that animated both the political and economic information exchange and produced the earliest hand-written newsletters
(avvisi) - and later also printed newspapers; (3) the early regulatory policies of the state; (4) the competition with other postal services and propensity
towards creating postal monopolies; (5) the costs of operation and postal schedules; (6) the everyday functioning of a company that acted de facto as
a medieval guild – enforcing state regulatory policies, while also providing job security for its members.