On August 21, 402 years have passed since the murder in Madrid of the Count of Villamediana, a crime described as an assassination, perhaps not only because of the victim but also because of the alleged instigator: Philip IV, King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, Duke of Milan, Duke of Burgundy, sovereign of the Netherlands and Count of Flanders. His murder has all the ingredients of a thriller timeless, yesterday as today: sex, jealousy, corruption, conspiracies and hatred. And yesterday as today, his crime went unpunished.
The victim, Juan de Tassis y Peralta (Lisbon, 1582-Madrid, 1622), was His Majesty’s Major Postmaster and General Postmaster, a lucrative and influential job, which included espionage and diplomacy. It was established in Spain in 1505 by Philip I of Castile, ‘the Handsome’, father of Emperor Charles V, in the person of the Lombard Francisco de Tassis, ancestor of ‘our hero’, a pioneer of the postal service in Europe who had already served in Burgundy and Flanders: correspondence between Brussels and Toledo took 12 to 14 days to arrive (in winter). An influential and important family in the courts of the Holy Roman Empire, the Vatican and, finally, the Spanish Empire, whose King Philip III granted the county of Villamediana to the sixth descendant of the dynasty for his efficiency and support, as a soldier and diplomat, to the monarchy.
Add Comment