Sixteenth century European printed works on the first Japanese mission to Europe : a descriptive bibliography / by Adriana Boscaro.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-196).

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PREFACE
The Japanese mission to Pope Gregory XIII in 1585 undoubtedly had a strong popular appeal, which is seen from the great number of printed booklets, relating only to it, printed in Europe for the occasion. The mission, planned by Alessandro Valignano, the great organizer of the missionary work in the Orient, had two predominant aims. The most important was to obtain from the Pope the rights to Japan for the Jesuits, the second was to make Europe known to the Japanese. Valignano's intentions were for the four young boys to be witnesses, once back home, for a reality which was somewhat incomprehensible to the Japanese. They could hardly believe that someone would leave such an extolled place to live in poverty and insecurity in their country. Not being able to understand the inner meaning of missionary life, this fact left them rather sceptical. But, on the other hand, sixteenth century Europe too did not know much about Japan. The mission was the event which provided the opportunity to propagate news about it. The fact that Pope Gregory decided to give them public concistory (which meant that he regarded them as official ambassadors) gave the final spur to people's curiosity. This is not the place for a detailed description of the mission and of its background, this having been done in fuller works. Just a few details about the envoys themselves. The three feudal lords (incorrectly called 'kings') who sent the mission were all from Kyushu: Otomo Yoshishige (Francisco) in Bungo, Arima Harunobu (Protasio) and Omura Sumitada (Bartholomeu) in Hizen province. Otomo sent Ita Mancio, who was the chief envoy; the lords of Arima and Omura chose Chijiwa Miguel. Two other young boys were added as escort: Nakaura Juliano and Hara Martino. The family relationships between the senders and the envoys were rather complicated and caused some misunderstandings in the European records, apart from the names which we find distorted in many chronicles.
The daily news publications seized hold of their trip through Portugal, Spain and Italy, and the gazettes dedicated to the Japanese  
appeared in rapid, almost frenetic, succession. The publishers, who were in most cases both authors and editors of these gazettes, competed in keeping people well informed about the movements of the envoys. To put such news against the right background they pillaged the annual letters and the reports previously written by the Jesuits from Japan. The details are fairly accurate: the description of the political situation and some acute observations of their way of writing, thinking and living, made these phamphlets excellent instruments of popularization. Such booklets are called cinquecentine in Italian, in other words works printed in the sixteenth century. Since the greatest number of them was published in Italy, they will be often referred to by this name. Seventy-eight items are presented here, in witness of an astonishing editorial boom. Surely many more exist (besides those listed in Appendix 11) and I should be most grateful for any kind of information.

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