The Brienne trunk is a 17th-century trunk of letters bequeathed to the Dutch postal museum in The Hague. The trunk belonged to one of the most active postmaster and postmistress of the day, Simon and Marie de Brienne, a couple at the heart of European communication networks. The chest contains an extraordinary archive: 2,600 "locked" letters sent from all over Europe to this axis of communication, none of which were ever delivered. Sealed letters from this trunk were scanned by X-ray microtomography and “virtually unfolded” to reveal their contents for the first time in centuries. (Unlocking History Research Group)
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