Istituto di studi storici postali “Aldo Cecchi”
Postal history takes as its subject the exploration of a distinctive mode of organized communications, with a focus on its material dimension.
This approach to the history of communications is new and promising. It connects several different modes of inquiry that are often considered in isolation. These include social history; cultural history; diplomatic history; the history of management, entrepreneurship, and commerce; the history of journalism; historical geography; epistolography; paleography; and philately.
Since 1982 the Istituto di Studi Storici Postali “Aldo Cecchi” in Prato (Tuscany, Italy) has been an international center for research in postal history.
The Institute is committed to the preservation, increase, and sharing of knowledge on postal-historical topics through publications, workshops, courses, exhibitions, and other related projects that promote our core goals.
We are especially interested in encouraging the sustained involvement of universities in postal history research, and in proposing new lines of research to postal history collectors.
Istituto di studi storici postali “Aldo Cecchi”
The Institute is an association of volunteers (www.issp.po.it) founded in 1982 and based in Prato, in the historical Palazzo Datini, in Via Ser Lapo Mazzei 37.
It proposes various activities in the postal and communications sector, including: archival and bibliographical research, organisation of conferences and meetings with scholars and academics, the annual “Colloqui di storia postale”, specialisation courses, the publication of the “Quaderni di storia postale” and the six-monthly journal “Archivio per la storia postale - Comunicazioni e società”.
One of its tasks is the preservation of the archive coming from the Higher Military Post Office, which houses 400,000 original documents relating to the 20th century and which has already provided material for publications published by the historical office of the Army General Staff.
In addition, the Institute deals with a postal history archive with several fonds, the management of a library-archive with more than 16,000 volumes and pamphlets, plus a newspaper library with 1,200 titles; both can be consulted by appointment from Monday to Friday, with catalogues also online. Not to be forgotten are the 1,800 collections on the website.
For its functioning, the Institute relies on the support of its members; for residents outside Italy is €50.00, to be paid by bank transfer to the Institute’s account IBAN IT09A0306921531100000004941 at Intesa Sanpaolo Bank in Prato; members, about a hundred, receive the Issp journal free of charge.
Postal History between Multidisciplinary and Diachronic Glances
4th International Congress organized by the Institute,Prato, Italy, June 18-20, 2026
“This is the fourth edition of the conference, knowing that, in recent years, there are no other similar proposals throughout Europe” announces Bruno Crevato-Selvaggi, director of the Istituto di studi storici postali “Aldo Cecchi”. “It will be three demanding days, but, judging by previous outcomes, also rewarding. This time, too, professors and experts will be participating, arriving from all over Europe, as well as Argentina, Brazil, the United States, and Taiwan. Therefore, the conference will be held in French, English, or Italian, as appropriate. I'm pleased that there are so many new speakers, representing different institutions. This is a sign that the international research community in postal history is continually expanding, with the Prato Institute at its epicenter. One of the great international centers of reference for the field”.
A look at the previous edition...
3rd International Congress, Prato, Italy, June 20-22, 2024
In the 2024 edition of the conference, around thirty short lectures hosted, in three intensive days, at “Roncioniana” Library, the State Archives, and the “Alessandro Lazzerini” Library in Prato. The topics have ranged from the Roman “cursus publicus” to communications between colonial Chile and the Spanish Crown, from mail orders to Cold War postcards, from the merchants of the Serenissima to the use of the camel for urgent mail in the ancient Caliphates, from couriers in imperial China to letters sent clandestinely from Romania, from the study on addresses to the Italian asylum system...
Since 1982 the Istituto di Studi Storici Postali “Aldo Cecchi” in Prato
has been an international center for research in postal history.
The Institute is located in the medieval Palazzo Datini, which houses the letters of Francesco Datini (1335-1410),
the celebrated early modern Italian business leader who is known as the “merchant of Prato.”
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