Relatione delle persecutioni mosse contro la fede di Christo in varii regni del Giappone ne gl’anni 1628. 1629. e 1630.

A$6,000 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Al molto Rev.do in Christo P. Mutio Vitelleschi, Preposito Generale della Compagnia di GIESU . Rome and Milan : Filippo Ghisolfi, 1635. Duodecimo, handsome binding by Aquarius of panelled red calf, richly gilt; speckled edges; title-page with woodcut Jesuit device; pp. 218; small worm track to final ten leaves (sealed on pp. 207 218), with pp. 209 210 supplied in facsimile, signs of ownership stamp removed on final leaf, a good copy. Rare Milan edition of this account of the most recent persecutions of Christians in Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate, by the Portuguese missionary Cristóvão Ferreira (1580-1650). This work is made all the more interesting due to the fact that in 1633 Ferreira committed apostasy: after suffering torture, he renounced Christianity, and thereafter became the most famous of the so-called fallen priests , ostensibly adopting Zen Buddhism, changing his name to Sawano Chūan, marrying a Japanese woman, and assisting Japanese authorities to gain knowledge of Western philosophies and sciences. His books, which included treatises on astronomy and medicine, were widely disseminated in Japan in the early Edo period. The first edition was printed earlier in 1635 in Rome, by Corbelletti. Other editions in Latin (Antwerp) and French (Paris and Douay) were published in the same year. Cordier, BJ , 323

• Binding: Hardcover

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