Lettera annale delle cose del Giapone del M. D. LXXXII

Coelho, Gaspar

1585. Rome. Francesco Zannetti. 8vo. pp. 118; title with woodcut Jesuit device. Later red calf, boards with gilt central device and borders, spine with raised bands decorated and entered in gilt. Fine copy, very clean.

First edition presumably, printed the same year as the Milan edition, priority not firmly established, although the first editions were regularly printed in Rome. Authored by Portuguese Jesuit Father Gaspar Coelho (c.1529-1590), the report itself (pp. 1-103) contains valuable information on traditional Japanese customs and institutions, descriptions of the residences of the Jesuits in Japan, and includes an account of a visit to the Imperial court.

 

At the end (pp. 105-118) we find the “Relatione della felice morte di cinque religiosi della compagnia di Giesu et di alcuni altri secolari ammazzati da' Gentili per la Fede, nell'India Orientale. l'anno 1583. Cavata da una del P. Alessandro Valignano, Provinciale dell'India al P. Generale della Compagnia di Gesù, data in Goa”, this is the relation by Valignano, concerning the martyrdom of 5 Jesuits in India.

 

The annual report was printed in several editions in, Rome, Venice and elsewhere, in Italian, Latin, German and French. However, the present 118-page Rome edition includes the report by Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606).

 

Cordier, Japonica, 78; not in Streit.

1585

$7,000.00