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The House of Thurn und Taxis

Few princely families owe their rise to a business. The Taxis family built the postal service of the Holy Roman Empire, and that service carried them from couriers to princes of the Empire [1][2]. Since 1748 the family has lived in Regensburg, at St. Emmeram Castle [1][2]. This page tells its history from the Neue Deutsche Biographie and the family's own website, which are listed at the end.

From Cornello to the Habsburg post

The family name appears in many forms, among them Tasso, Taxis and Tassis [1]. According to the Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB), the family can be traced from the mid-thirteenth century in Camerata Cornello, in today's province of Bergamo. A Gabriel de Tassis is recorded as papal postmaster in 1474 [1]. The family's website traces its history back to the early twelfth century, when the Tasso or Tassis served the Republic of Venice and the Papal States as couriers [2].

In 1489/90, the account books of King Maximilian at Innsbruck record payments for the postal services of Janetto de Tassis, his brother Francesco (Franz von Taxis, 1459–1517) and their nephew Johann Baptista (1470–1541) [1]. The family site credits Franz von Taxis with setting up an organised courier service between Innsbruck, seat of the Emperor, and Brussels, seat of the Habsburg governor. It dates that foundation stone of the international postal system to 1490 [2]. By about 1500, a letter took five and a half days between the two cities [2].

The route ran from the Netherlands through Innsbruck to Italy. It was first conceived as an exclusive Habsburg post, but by about 1500 the Taxis also carried private letters to cover their costs [1]. Franz von Taxis was raised to the hereditary nobility of the Empire by Maximilian I in 1512 [1]. Contracts of 1505, 1516 and 1517 with Philip I and Charles V fixed routes, delivery times and the financing of the business, and gave it a monopoly [1].

Imperial postmasters general

Under Emperor Rudolf II, a reform completed by 1595/97 confirmed the Taxis as postmasters general of the Empire (Reichsgeneralpostmeister) and restored the business's finances [1]. Key steps in the family's rise follow [1][2]:

Note: the sources describe the 1615 fief slightly differently. The family website says Emperor Matthias made the office a hereditary fief "in the male and female line" in 1615 [2]. The NDB says it was granted as a male fief in 1615, and from 1621 also as a female fief [1].

After the early death of Leonhard II in 1628, his widow Alexandrine de Rye (1589–1666) ran the post for their son until 1646 and secured it through the Thirty Years' War [1]. The family website calls her the first woman entrepreneur in German history [2].

The Torriani tradition

In 1650, Emperor Ferdinand III recognised the Taxis as descendants of the Milanese della Torre (Torriani) and allowed them to add the Torriani name and arms, the tower, to their own. That is how the name Thurn und Taxis arose [1][2].

The two sources describe this origin differently:

• The family website calls the Torriani descent a "baroque family tradition" [2].
• The NDB calls it a genealogical "construct" and an "origin legend", produced by efforts that Alexandrine and her son had commissioned [1].

GOTHA reports both descriptions and does not treat the Torriani descent as established genealogy.

Regensburg and the Reichstag

In 1748, Emperor Francis I appointed Prince Alexander Ferdinand (1704–1773) principal commissioner, the Emperor's representative at the Perpetual Diet in Regensburg. The family moved there the same year [1][2]. Until the end of the Empire in 1806, members of the family held the office without interruption [1]. The house was admitted to the Imperial Council of Princes in 1754. It acquired the princely county of Friedberg-Scheer only in 1785 [1].

Prince Carl Anselm created the princely court library from his private library of 2,330 volumes. It has been open to all, free of charge, since 1786 [2].

Mediatization and the end of the post

In 1806, despite the diplomatic efforts of Karl Alexander and his wife Therese, the house was mediatized. It lost its sovereign rights to Württemberg, Bavaria and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and its princes became Standesherren [1]. The office of principal commissioner and the imperial post fief also lapsed [1].

At the Congress of Vienna, the family obtained a property right in the post [1]. Bavaria gave the house land in and around Regensburg in 1812, including the secularised Benedictine monastery of St. Emmeram, which was rebuilt as a palace in the nineteenth century [1]. In 1867, Prussia forced the family to give up its post entirely, in return for compensation of 5 million florins [1].

The twentieth century and today

• Franz Joseph (1893–1971) lost his only heir, Gabriel (1922–1942), at Stalingrad [1].
• His brother and successor as head of the house, Karl August (1898–1982), was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and held until the end of the war [1].
• Under Karl August's son Johannes (1926–1990) and his wife Gloria, born Countess of Schönburg-Glauchau (born 1960), the family business became a diversified international group [1].

Their son Albert II was born in Regensburg on 24 June 1983. The family website calls him the twelfth Prince of Thurn und Taxis [3]. The NDB says he has been head of the house since coming of age [1]. He studied economics and theology at the University of Edinburgh (2004–2008), trained as a Chartered Financial Analyst in Zurich, and completed a doctorate in philosophy in Rome in 2022 [3]. As head of the princely house he is grand master of the house order De Parfaite Amitié [3]. The family website also lists Princess Maria Theresia and Princess Elisabeth [4].

Licence: this article is original GOTHA text, released under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Its sources are summarised or briefly quoted.