The Tasso family (from the Italian word for "
badger", the family's heraldic animal) was a
Lombard family in the area of
Bergamo. The earliest records place them in Almenno in the
Val Brembana around 1200, before they fled to the more distant village of
Cornello to escape feuding between Bergamo's
Colleoni (
Guelf) and
Suardi (
Ghibelline) families. Around 1290, after
Milan had conquered Bergamo,
Omodeo Tasso organized 32 of his relatives into the Company of Couriers (
Compagnia dei Corrieri) and linked Milan with
Venice and
Rome. The recipient of royal and papal patronage, his
post riders were so comparatively efficient that they became known as
bergamaschi throughout Italy. Ruggiero de Tassis was named to the court of the
Emperor Frederick the Peaceful in 1443. He organized a post system between Bergamo and
Vienna by 1450; was appointed Chief Master of Postal Services at Innsbruck in 1489.
Philip of Burgundy elevated Janetto's brother to captain of his post in 1502. By 1516, Francisco had moved the family to Brussels in the
Duchy of Brabant, where they became instrumental to
Habsburg rule, linking the rich
Habsburg Netherlands to the Spanish court. The normal route passed through
France, but a secondary route across the
Alps to
Genoa was available in times of hostility. At the death of Francisco in 1517, Emperor
Charles V appointed Francisco's nephew Johann Baptista von Taxis (1470-1541) as
Generalpostmeister of the
Kaiserliche Reichspost. Johann Baptista was briefly succeeded by his eldest son, Franz II von Taxis (1514-1543), after whose untimely death the family split into two further branches. The youngest son, Leonhard I von Taxis, succeeded as
Generalpostmeister and is the ancestor of the princely Thurn and Taxis family. Johann Baptista's second-eldest son, Raymond de Tassis (1515-1579), took over the office of postmaster-general to the
Crown of Spain and settled in Spain. Raymond married into
Spanish nobility, and his eldest son
Juan de Tassis was created
Count of Villamediana in 1603 by
Phillip III. The Spanish line of the family became extinct with
Juan de Tassis, 2nd Count of Villamediana, a poet who died in mysterious circumstances in 1622. In 1608 the Brussels line was raised to the status of hereditary
barons, and in 1642 the Innsbruck line as well (which descends from Gabriel de Tassis, d. 1529). When the Brussels line was raised to the hereditary status of
counts in 1624, they needed illustrious lineage to legitimize their intended further ascension to the high nobility.
Alexandrine von Taxis commissioned genealogists to "clarify" their origin, who until then had only been considered a family descending from medieval knights who had become merchants. They now claimed, albeit without documentary evidence, that they descended from the Italian noble family
Della Torre, or Torriani, who had ruled in Milan and Lombardy until 1311. She then applied to the emperor for a name change. With the Germanization, the coat of arms symbol of the Milanese family, the tower
(Torre), became
Thurn (an older German spelling, nowadays
Turm) and was placed in front of the actual family name
Tasso, translated with
Taxis (an older German spelling for
Dachs = Badger). The tower of the Torriani was added to the badger as a coat of arms. They formally adopted the German form of their name in 1650, including the comital Innsbruck line, which also exists to this day. In 1681 the Brussels line was elevated to the
Spanish Netherlands' rank of prince with
Eugen Alexander Franz, 1st Prince of Thurn and Taxis, with
Braine-le-Château (acquired in 1670) as his titular principality
(Principauté de la Tour et Tassis), and in 1695 to the rank of
imperial prince at the behest of Emperor
Leopold I, although at that time no territorial possessions existed in the
Holy Roman Empire. Admission to the
Imperial Council of Princes in the
Imperial Diet took place in 1704. The Brussels line moved to
Frankfurt in 1703 because of the
War of the Spanish Succession; their new family seat built from 1731 was the
Palais Thurn und Taxis. Emperor
Charles VII appointed
Alexander Ferdinand, 3rd Prince of Thurn and Taxis,
Principal Commissioner (Lord Chancellor) of the Imperial Diet in 1743. He therefore moved to
Regensburg, where the parliament was seated, in 1748. The position became hereditary in the family who lived in different houses there, but the company headquarters remained in Frankfurt. When
Saint Emmeram's Abbey in Regensburg was secularized in 1803, the monastery buildings were donated to the princes of Thurn and Taxis, who had them converted into a residence, henceforth known as
Schloss Thurn and Taxis, sometimes also called
Saint Emmeram Palace. It has remained their family seat to this day. In 1786,
Karl Anselm, 4th Prince of Thurn and Taxis, acquired the
Upper Swabian county of Friedberg with the lordships of
Scheer,
Dürmentingen and Bussen from the princes of
Waldburg, which from 1787 was known as the
County of Friedberg-Scheer. Only then did the Thurn und Taxis rule their own
principality of the empire for 20 years, but their main source of income remained the Imperial Reichspost. The family operated the
Thurn-und-Taxis Post, successor to the
Imperial Reichspost of the Holy Roman Empire, between 1806 and 1867. Their postal service was gradually lost over the centuries, with the Spanish network being bought by the crown in the 18th century and the German post being purchased by
Prussia after the fall of the
Free City of Frankfurt in 1866. By investing their earnings from the postal business - later also the settlements for the postal rights - in numerous landed estates, a large number of forests and farms as well as castles were added to the family property, especially from secularized church property, among them
Buchau Abbey,
Marchtal Abbey,
Neresheim Abbey, Ennetach Abbey,
Siessen Abbey, and others. In 1803 they were summarized as
Imperial Principality of Buchau. The buildings of these monasteries were mostly re-donated to the church in the 20th century, but the lands continue to be cultivated by the princely administration. Besides the St Emmeram's Palace the current prince still owns
Taxis Castle (Trugenhofen) and Garatshausen Castle at
Feldafing on
Lake Starnberg. in
Regensburg, Germany
Rainer Maria Rilke wrote his
Duino Elegies while visiting Princess Marie of Thurn and Taxis (
née Princess of
Hohenlohe, wife of Prince Alexander) at her family's
Duino Castle near Trieste. Rilke later dedicated his only novel (
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge) to the princess, who was his
patroness. Her son Prince Alexander (1881–1937) became an Italian citizen named
Principe della Torre e Tasso and was raised in 1923 by the Italian king to
Duke of Castel Duino. Today Duino Castle belongs to his grandson, Prince Carlo della Torre e Tasso, Duca di Castel Duino (b. 1952). The Duino branch is part of the family's
Czech branch that in the early 19th century settled in
Bohemia (now the
Czech Republic). Several members of the family have been
Knights of Malta. Until 1919, the titles of the head of the princely house were
His Serene Highness the Fürst von Thurn und Taxis, Prince of Buchau and Prince of Krotoszyn, Duke of Wörth and Donaustauf, Princely Count of Friedberg-Scheer, Count of Valle-Sássina, Marchtal, Neresheim etc., Hereditary Postmaster General. The current head of the house of Thurn and Taxis is
Albert II, 12th Prince of Thurn and Taxis, son of
Johannes and his wife,
Gloria. The family is one of the wealthiest in Germany. The family's brewery was sold to the
Paulaner Group of
Munich in 1996, but it still produces beer under the brand of
Thurn und Taxis. == Princes of Thurn and Taxis ==