Rachel Midura
@rmidura.bsky.social
Digital historian of early modern Europe in Virginia. Posts on historical travel, mail, diplomats, spies 🕵️ Author of Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cornell, 2025). Now on #17thC conspiracy.
Had a lovely brief visit back in the Bay! Great fun discussing #17thcentury conspiracies with groups at Stanford and Berkeley 🕵️♀️
October 4, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Had a lovely brief visit back in the Bay! Great fun discussing #17thcentury conspiracies with groups at Stanford and Berkeley 🕵️♀️
Finally got to do the secret itinerary tour of the Palazzo Ducale! It was amazing. Friend described the vibe perfectly as “classy torture bureaucracy.” 🗃️
May 24, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Finally got to do the secret itinerary tour of the Palazzo Ducale! It was amazing. Friend described the vibe perfectly as “classy torture bureaucracy.” 🗃️
Finally warm enough to work on the porch with my favorite assistant 🐈⬛ #catsofacademia #academicats
May 8, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Finally warm enough to work on the porch with my favorite assistant 🐈⬛ #catsofacademia #academicats
The dots are each waystations as published in contemporary itinerary books like this one. They are generally "posts" that couriers would have passed through, but also travelers more generally!
April 8, 2025 at 8:48 PM
The dots are each waystations as published in contemporary itinerary books like this one. They are generally "posts" that couriers would have passed through, but also travelers more generally!
Probably one more session of tidying to go before I've got a complete route network for Italy as published #16thCentury - #18thCentury! I like this view of Northern Italy to show that the #earlymodern routes (red) are not just the Roman roads (green). 🗃️ @emdigit.bsky.social
April 8, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Probably one more session of tidying to go before I've got a complete route network for Italy as published #16thCentury - #18thCentury! I like this view of Northern Italy to show that the #earlymodern routes (red) are not just the Roman roads (green). 🗃️ @emdigit.bsky.social
Bringing my Reformation course close to home, once again 🫠 Too bad that the answer I come to is the establishment of strong cross-cultural, cross-confessional institutions #earlymodern #reformazing
March 24, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Bringing my Reformation course close to home, once again 🫠 Too bad that the answer I come to is the establishment of strong cross-cultural, cross-confessional institutions #earlymodern #reformazing
Mandatory #RenSa2025 / #shax2025 book exhibit pic with my freshly-published book 🎉 (thanks @amandamadden.bsky.social , and of course, @cornellupress.bsky.social !)
March 20, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Mandatory #RenSa2025 / #shax2025 book exhibit pic with my freshly-published book 🎉 (thanks @amandamadden.bsky.social , and of course, @cornellupress.bsky.social !)
#RenSa25 #earlymodern folks: as you triple schedule yourself on the app today, consider adding “How (Not) to Send a Letter”! We’ll show you how your historical agents communicated, and occasionally wished they hadn’t ✉️📯🗃️
March 20, 2025 at 12:03 PM
#RenSa25 #earlymodern folks: as you triple schedule yourself on the app today, consider adding “How (Not) to Send a Letter”! We’ll show you how your historical agents communicated, and occasionally wished they hadn’t ✉️📯🗃️
Book launched! Book cake was had 😋 Thankful to be able to celebrate with many of the folks who got me here 🥰
March 16, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Book launched! Book cake was had 😋 Thankful to be able to celebrate with many of the folks who got me here 🥰
Ended up somewhat overcommitted this semester (at least given the general environmental chaos), but it is hard to regret working with so many student researchers on @emdigit.bsky.social. Just logging in to the Trello board this morning reminded me that #digitalhumanities collaboration = community ☺️
March 12, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Ended up somewhat overcommitted this semester (at least given the general environmental chaos), but it is hard to regret working with so many student researchers on @emdigit.bsky.social. Just logging in to the Trello board this morning reminded me that #digitalhumanities collaboration = community ☺️
Digging back through old notes and I re-found my favorite example of how #earlymodern postal officials were absolutely thinking in terms of networks 🤩 #digitalhistory #dataviz 🗃️
March 10, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Digging back through old notes and I re-found my favorite example of how #earlymodern postal officials were absolutely thinking in terms of networks 🤩 #digitalhistory #dataviz 🗃️
“I wonder which building is the university library… wait, I think I can guess.”
March 6, 2025 at 3:14 PM
“I wonder which building is the university library… wait, I think I can guess.”
I've just learned about kumu.io, and I am really liking it! Browser-based, clear documentation, intuitive UI, easy annotation and metrics. A quick google turned up an easy way of doing dynamic time slices. Here is an example with the networks in Venetian spy reports🕵️ #digitalhumanities #dh 🗃️
February 20, 2025 at 10:51 AM
I've just learned about kumu.io, and I am really liking it! Browser-based, clear documentation, intuitive UI, easy annotation and metrics. A quick google turned up an easy way of doing dynamic time slices. Here is an example with the networks in Venetian spy reports🕵️ #digitalhumanities #dh 🗃️
That image of the faithful, unpartisan postmaster/postmistress can be dangerous, however. Communications never lost political power or profitability. The post house was always an intelligence operation at the center of espionage, counter-espionage, surveillance, and censorship. 8/?
February 18, 2025 at 5:33 PM
That image of the faithful, unpartisan postmaster/postmistress can be dangerous, however. Communications never lost political power or profitability. The post house was always an intelligence operation at the center of espionage, counter-espionage, surveillance, and censorship. 8/?
Yet "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor dark of night will keep these swift messengers." The legend of postal service is well deserved. From banking to travel, postal service redefined how Europeans related to their state, their markets, and one another. 7/?
February 18, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Yet "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor dark of night will keep these swift messengers." The legend of postal service is well deserved. From banking to travel, postal service redefined how Europeans related to their state, their markets, and one another. 7/?
These are big ideas that link information technologies across the centuries, but this was an analog revolution. Messengers became expert in navigating physical threats. "To ride by post is to ride with death," and many did die of plague, flood, and in one memorable case, a pack of hungry wolves 6/?
February 18, 2025 at 5:33 PM
These are big ideas that link information technologies across the centuries, but this was an analog revolution. Messengers became expert in navigating physical threats. "To ride by post is to ride with death," and many did die of plague, flood, and in one memorable case, a pack of hungry wolves 6/?
Hmm, I can't imagine why this might be on my mind 🤔Understanding the sometimes VERY petty and always personal alliances, antipathies, and grudges of technocrats surely has no importance for how we think about technology, infrastructure, statecraft, and international relations, right? 5/?
February 18, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Hmm, I can't imagine why this might be on my mind 🤔Understanding the sometimes VERY petty and always personal alliances, antipathies, and grudges of technocrats surely has no importance for how we think about technology, infrastructure, statecraft, and international relations, right? 5/?
Much like certain other technocrats, however, I found that if you control the communications infrastructure, you enjoy a LOT of power. You trade favors with the elite, take bribes, intercept letters, publish newsletters, promote your family members, and influence foreign and domestic policy 4/?
February 18, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Much like certain other technocrats, however, I found that if you control the communications infrastructure, you enjoy a LOT of power. You trade favors with the elite, take bribes, intercept letters, publish newsletters, promote your family members, and influence foreign and domestic policy 4/?
The Tasso, or Tassis, went from merchants and messengers and bankers to postmasters for the Venetians, Papacy, and (most famously) the Habsburg monarchs. If you wanted mail moved at the fastest possible speed (in relay) at the end of the 15C/beginning of the 16C, these were your guys! 3/?
February 18, 2025 at 5:33 PM
The Tasso, or Tassis, went from merchants and messengers and bankers to postmasters for the Venetians, Papacy, and (most famously) the Habsburg monarchs. If you wanted mail moved at the fastest possible speed (in relay) at the end of the 15C/beginning of the 16C, these were your guys! 3/?
This is Camerata Cornello, or Cornello dei Tasso. It is an ~hour north of Bergamo and home to the Tasso Family and Postal History Museum. Once I started looking for the Tassis, other families from the Val Bembrana and surrounding valleys were everywhere, as brokers, innkeepers, and messengers. 2/?
February 18, 2025 at 5:33 PM
This is Camerata Cornello, or Cornello dei Tasso. It is an ~hour north of Bergamo and home to the Tasso Family and Postal History Museum. Once I started looking for the Tassis, other families from the Val Bembrana and surrounding valleys were everywhere, as brokers, innkeepers, and messengers. 2/?
I've just cleared a few to-do list items and been alerted that the first pre-ordered copies of Postal Intelligence have arrived (!) so now seems like as good a time as any to share some exciting and troubling tidbits from my ten years with Europe's postal technocrats 1/? #earlymodern 🗃️
February 18, 2025 at 5:33 PM
I've just cleared a few to-do list items and been alerted that the first pre-ordered copies of Postal Intelligence have arrived (!) so now seems like as good a time as any to share some exciting and troubling tidbits from my ten years with Europe's postal technocrats 1/? #earlymodern 🗃️
The world is a trash-fire, but have you considered finding a fireplace 🔥 #academicats
February 12, 2025 at 12:18 AM
The world is a trash-fire, but have you considered finding a fireplace 🔥 #academicats
Got my souvenir from the society for intelligence history conference at the International Spy Museum gift shop. Plus I learned they will soon carry my book! 🥹
February 7, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Got my souvenir from the society for intelligence history conference at the International Spy Museum gift shop. Plus I learned they will soon carry my book! 🥹
Glad I got them a little window so they could go outside to watch me 🤦♀️ #catsofacademia
February 4, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Glad I got them a little window so they could go outside to watch me 🤦♀️ #catsofacademia
Community predicted it.
February 4, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Community predicted it.