Omodeo Tasso or Omodeo de Tassis (13th century – 1290) was an Italian patriarch of the Thurn und Taxis dynasty in the late 13th century. He is generally credited with initiating the first modern postal service as the administrators first of the Imperial Post and later their own postal network.
Omodeo's family was known to have lived in the Val Brembana in Cornello dei Tasso since .Originally from Almenno, around 1200 they moved to Cornello, in the upper Brembana valley. The feuding between the Guelf Colleoni and the Ghibelline Suardi in the nearby commune of Bergamo caused them to relocate to the more distant village of Cornello, where Omodeo grew up. Around 1290,The Encyclopedia Americana: The International Reference Work, Vol. 25, p. 476. Utgiver Americana Corporation, 1958. Accessed 3 October 2013. after Milan had conquered Bergamo, Omodeo organized 32 of his relatives into the Company of Couriers () and linked Milan with Venice and Rome.Turismo Lombardia. "Il Borgo di Camerata Cornello dei Tasso ". Accessed 3 October 2013. The recipient of royal and papal patronage, his company was so comparatively efficient that post riders became known as bergamaschi throughout Italy.López Jurado, Luis Felipe. Prefilatelia de Murcia: Historia Postal del Reino de Murcia desde 1569 hasta 1861, pp. 26 ff. "La Familia Tassis". Editora Regional de Murcia, 2006. Accessed 3 October 2013.
Legacy Under the misspelling "Omedio Tassis", Omodeo figures prominently in the Thomas Pynchon novella The Crying of Lot 49.Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49. Lippincott & Co., 1966.Hurley, Patrick J. Pynchon Character Names: A Dictionary, p. 155. McFarland & Co., 2008.
See also Postal history of Germany Princely House of Thurn and Taxis
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