Contained in:
Book Chapter

Unsheathing the Katana. The Long Fortune of the First Two Japanese Embassies in Italy: Rediscovery and Rereading between Continuity and Discontinuity (1873–1905)

  • Alessandro Tripepi

At the end of the nineteenth century, Italy welcomed an official embassy sent by the government in Tokyo to make Japan more integrated into the new world scene it was entering. The cultural and political elites of the peninsula had the chance to discover, or rather rediscover, the charm of a world that had been lost over the centuries. This essay aims to reflect on the means and meanings of this late nineteenth-century encounter. Indeed, from this moment onwards, Japan increasingly became part of Italian mental horizons, in particular through the rereading and reuse of two precedents dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that saw the two countries dialogue and “discover” each other for the first time.

  • Keywords:
  • Italy,
  • Japan,
  • Iwakura,
  • Boncompagni,
  • mikado,
+ Show More

Alessandro Tripepi

University of Milan, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-3221-7285

  1. Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (AAV), Fondo Borghese, Serie IV, n.65, lettere diverse, 1615 f. 56.
  2. Archivio di Stato di Milano (ASMi), Prefettura di Milano, Gabinetto, Carteggio fino al 1937 - Serie I, 742.
  3. Archivo General de Indias, Gobierno (AGI), Audiencia de Filipinas, 1, n. 150, ff. 1-3.
  4. Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), Jap. Sin. 12 II, ff. 191v-192.
  5. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV), Urb. Lat. 1053, Roma, March 23th, 1585, ff. 138-39.
  6. Alvar, Manuel. 1995. “La Embajada Japonesa de 1614 al Rey de España.” Thesaurus: boletín del Instituto Caro y Cuervo 50, 1–3: 518–25.
  7. Bang, Seung Ho. 2015. “An Assessment of the Role of Gregorio de Céspedes, S. J. during the Imjin War in the Late Sixteenth Century: Church and State Collaboration in the Spanish Colonization.” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 14, 40: 186–208.<http://jsri.ro/ojs/index.php/jsri/article/view/766/649>.
  8. Berchet, Guglielmo. 1877. Le antiche ambasciate giapponesi in Italia. Venezia: Tip. del commercio di Marco Visentini.
  9. Berryman, John, Keith Neilson, and Ian Nish. 1994. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 in its International Dimension. London: Suntory-Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines-London School of Economics and Political Science.
  10. Boncompagni Ludovisi, Francesco. 1904. Le prime due ambasciate dei giapponesi a Roma (1585-1615) con nuovi documenti. Roma: Forzani & comp.
  11. Boscaro, Adriana. 2008. Ventura e sventura dei gesuiti in Giappone (1549-1639). 2 vols. Venezia: Cafoscarina.
  12. Boxer, Charles R. 1951. The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  13. Boxer, Charles R. 1969. “Portuguese and Spanish projects for the conquest of Southeast Asia, 1580-1600.” Journal of Asian History 3, 2: 118–36.
  14. Broggio, Paolo, Francesca Cantù, Pierre-Antoine Fabre, and Antonella Romano, eds. 2007. I gesuiti ai tempi di Claudio Acquaviva: strategie politiche, religiose e culturali tra Cinque e Seicento. Storia 19. Brescia: Morcelliana.
  15. Broggio, Paolo. 2003. “I gesuiti come pacificatori in Età moderna: dalle guerre di frontiera nel Nuovo Mondo americano alle lotte fazionarie nell’Europa Mediterranea.” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa XXXIX, 2: 249–89.
  16. Broggio, Paolo. 2004. Evangelizzare il mondo. Le missioni della Compagnia di Gesù tra Europa e Asia (secoli XVI-XVII). Roma: Carocci Editore.
  17. Broggio, Paolo. 2013. “Teologia “romana” e universalismo papale: la conquista spirituale del mondo (secoli XVI-XVII).” In Papato e politica internazionale nella prima età moderna, edited by Maria Antonietta Visceglia, 441–78. Roma: Viella.
  18. Catto, Michela. 2011. “Per una conquista dell’autorità religiosa. Alessandro Valignano tra ‘buone maniere’ e accommodatio gesuitica”. In Valignano, Alessandro. Il Cerimoniale per i missionari in Giappone. 1946. Ed. Josef Franz Schütte, VII–XXVI. Facsimile of the first edition. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.
  19. Clossey, Luke. 2008. Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Missions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  20. Colomar Albajar, Maria, and Pilar Lázaro de la Escosura, eds. 2013. De Japón a Roma Buscando el Sol de la Cristianidad. La Embajada de Hasekura (1613 - 1620). Sevilla: Archivio General de Indias.
  21. Corradi, Rafael Gaune. 2019. “Jesuit Missionaries and Missions in the Iberian Colonial World.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits, edited by Ines G. Županov, 379–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190639631.013.15
  22. Correia, Pedro Lage. 2018. “Violence, identity and conscience in the context of the Japanese Catholic Mission (16th Century)”. In Compel people to come in. Violence and Catholic Conversions in the non-European World, edited by Vincenzo Lavenia, Stefania Pastore, Sabina Pavone, and Chiara Petrolini, 103–16. Roma: Viella.
  23. Corriere della Sera. 1895. “Conferenza sulla Cina e sul Giappone.” March 15th–16th, 1895.
  24. Corriere della Sera. 1902. “Nel Sud-America La dittatura Castro tramonterebbe.” January 3rd, 1902.
  25. Corriere della Sera. 1904. “A proposito delle navi argentine cedute al Giappone.” January 8th, 1904.
  26. Corriere della Sera. 1930a. “I Principi giapponesi ricevuti a Torino da Umberto e Maria di Savoia.” November 29th–30th, 1930.
  27. Corriere della Sera. 1930b. “I Principi imperiali del Giappone ricevuti dal Re al Quirinale.” December 7th, 1930.
  28. Croce, Benedetto. 2002. La storia come pensiero e come azione. Saggi filosofici 9. Ed. Maria Conforti. Napoli: Bibliopolis.
  29. D’Elia, Pasquale. 1935. “Alle origini del Clero Indigeno nel Giappone e in Cina (1579-1606): Semplice nota schematica.” Gregorianum XVI, 1: 121–30.
  30. D’Elia, Pasquale. 1940. “Il P. Matteo Ricci S. I. introduce definitivamente il cristianesimo in Cina.” Gregorianum XXI, 2: 482–526.
  31. Elisonas, Jurgis S. A. 1991. “Christianity and the daimyo.” In The Cambridge history of Japan. Vol. 4: Early Modern Japan, edited by John W. Hall, and James L. McClain, 301–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521223553.008
  32. Elisonas, Jurgis S. A. 2008. “Nagasaki: The Early Years of an Early Modern Japanese City.” In Portuguese Colonial Cities in the Early Modern World, edited by Liam M. Brockey, 63–102. Farnham-Burligton: Ashgate.
  33. Fernández Gómez, Marcos. 1999. “La Misión Keicho (1613-1620): Cipango en Europa: una embajada Japonesa en la Sevilla del Siglo XVII.” Studia Historica: Historia Moderna 20, 1: 269–95. <https://revistas.usal.es/index.php/Studia_Historica/article/view/4832>.
  34. Flynn, Dennis O., Arturo Giráldez, and James Sobredo, eds. 2001. European Entry into the Pacific: Spain and the Acapulco-Manila Galleons. The Pacific World. Lands, Peoples and History of the pacific, 1500-1900 4. Aldershot: Ashgate.
  35. Friedrich, Markus. 2017. ““Government in India and Japan is different from government in Europe”: Asian Jesuits on Infrastructure, Administrative Space, and the Possibilities for a Global Management of Power.” Journal of Jesuit Studies 4, 1: 1–27.
  36. Fröhlich, Judith. 2014. “Pictures of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895.” War in History 21, 2: 214–50. DOI: 10.1177/0968344513504725
  37. Gams, Pius Bonifacius. 1957. Series Episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae. Graz: Akademische Druk- U. Verlagsanstalt. Facsimile of the first edition, Regensburg: Verlag Josef Manz, 1873–1886.
  38. Gazzetta di Venezia. 1873. “Ambasciata Giapponese.” May 30th, 1873.
  39. Gil, Juan. 1991. Hidalgos y Samurais. España y Japón en Siglos XVI y XVII. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
  40. Hesselink, Reinier H. 2016. The dream of Christian Nagasaki. World Trade and the Clash of Cultures, 1560-1640. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers.
  41. Iannello, Tiziana. 2012. Shōgun, kōmōjin e rangakusha. Le Compagnie delle Indie e l'apertura del Giappone alla tecnologia occidentale nei secoli XVII-XVIII. Padova: Libreriauniversitaria.it edizioni.
  42. Kunitake, Kume. 2009. Japan Rising. The Iwakura Embassy to the USA and Europe. Ed. Chushichi Tsuzuki, and R. Jules Young with an introduction by Ian Nish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  43. Lee, Christina H. 2008. “The Perception of the Japanese in Early Modern Spain: Not Quite “The best people yet discovered”.” eHumanista 11: 345–80.
  44. Lee, Christina H. 2008. “The Perception of the Japanese in Early Modern Spain: Not Quite “The best people yet discovered”.” eHumanista 11: 345–80. <https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume11/15%20Lee.pdf>.
  45. León-Portilla, Miguel. 1981. “La Embajada de los Japoneses en México, 1614. El testimonio en nahuatl del Cronista Chimalpahin.” Estudios de Asia y Africa XVI, 2: 215–41. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/40312014>.
  46. López-Vera, Jonathan. 2013. “La Embajada Keichō (1613-1620).” Asiadémica. Revista universitaria de estudios sobre Asia Oriental 2: 85–103. <https://raco.cat/index.php/asiademica/article/view/286822>.
  47. Luca, Augusto. 2005. Alessandro Valignano. La missione come dialogo con i popoli e le culture. Bologna: EMI.
  48. Margiotta Broglio, Francesco. 1969. “Boncompagni Ludovisi, Francesco.” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 11. Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana. <https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/francesco-boncompagni-ludovisi_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/>.
  49. Millán, José Martínez, and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, eds. 2008. La monarquía de Felipe III. La Casa del Rey. Vol 1. Madrid: Fundación MAPFRE.
  50. Moran, Joseph F. 1993. The Japanese and the Jesuits. Alessandro Valignano in sixteenth-century Japan. London-New York: Routledge.
  51. Nish, Ian, ed. 1998. The Iwakura Mission in America & Europe. A new Assessment. Richmond: Japan Library-Curzon Press Ltd.
  52. Paine, S. C. M. 2003. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Perceptions, Power, and Primacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  53. Puini, Carlo. 1905. “Francesco Boncompagni-Ludovisi, Le prime due Ambasciate dei Giapponesi a Roma (1585-1615): con nuovi documenti. – Roma, Forzani e Comp., Tipografi del Senato, 1904.” Archivio Storico Italiano XXXV, 238: 464–76. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/44458723>.
  54. Re, Emilio. 1930. “Boncompagni e Boncompagni-Ludovisi.” Enciclopedia Italiana 7: 394–95. Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana.
  55. Ross, Andrew C. 1999. “Alessandro Valignano: The Jesuits and Cultures in the East.” In The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773, edited by John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy, 334–51. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. DOI: 10.3138/9781442681569-019
  56. Sanfilippo, Matteo. 1997. “L’abito fa il monaco? Scelte di abbigliamento, strategie di adattamento e interventi romani nelle missioni «ad hereticos» e «ad infideles» tra XVI e XX secolo.” Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée 109, 2: 601–20.
  57. Sola, Emilio. 2012. Historia de un Desencuentro. España y Japón, 1580-1614. Centro Europeo para la Difusión de las Ciencias Sociales (CEDCS): Archivo de la Frontera. <http://www.archivodelafrontera.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Espana-y-Japon-XVI-XVII-Desencuentro.pdf>.
  58. Sorge, Giuseppe. 1991. Il Cristianesimo in Giappone e la seconda ambasceria nipponica in Europa. Con introduzione di Keiichi Takeuchi. Bologna: Editrice CLUEB. Repr. 1988.
  59. Spagnoletti, Angelantonio. 2018. Filippo II. Salerno: Salerno Editrice.
  60. Tamburello, Adolfo, M. Antoni J. Üçerler S. J., and Marisa Di Russo, eds. 2008. Alessandro Valignano S. I. Uomo del Rinascimento ponte tra Oriente e Occidente. Bibliotheca Instituti Historii Societatis Iesu 65. Roma: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu.
  61. Tremml-Werner, Birgit. 2015. Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571-1644. Local comparisons and Global Connections. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
  62. Tripepi, Alessandro. 2021. “Jesuit Diplomacy towards Japan. The Tenshō Embassy, the dialogue with Hideyoshi and the emergence of a “Global model” (1582-90).” Diplomatica 3, 1: 116–36. DOI: 10.1163/25891774-03010006
  63. Vagnini, Alessando. 2015. L’Italia e l’imperialismo giapponese in Estremo Oriente. La missione del Partito Nazionale Fascista in Giappone e nel Manciukuò. Roma: Aracne Editrice.
  64. Visceglia, Maria Antonietta, ed. 2013. Papato e politica internazionale nella prima età moderna. Roma: Viella.
  65. Wirbser, Rouven. 2017. “A Law Too Strict? The Cultural Translation of Catholic Marriage in the Jesuit Mission to Japan.” In Translating Catechisms, Translating Cultures. The Expansion of Catholicism in the Early Modern World, edited by Antje Flüchter, and Rouven Wirbser, 252–84. Leiden-Boston: Brill. DOI: 10.1163/9789004353060_009
  66. Zachmann, Urs Matthias. 2009. China and Japan in the late Meiji period. China policy and the Japan discourse on National identity, 1895-1904. London-New York: Routledge.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2022
  • Pages: 83-101
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2022 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2022
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2022 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Unsheathing the Katana. The Long Fortune of the First Two Japanese Embassies in Italy: Rediscovery and Rereading between Continuity and Discontinuity (1873–1905)

Authors

Alessandro Tripepi

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-579-0.06

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Rereading Travellers to the East

Book Subtitle

Shaping Identities and Building the Nation in Post-unification Italy

Editors

Beatrice Falcucci, Emanuele Giusti, Davide Trentacoste

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

232

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-579-0

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-578-3

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-579-0

eISBN (epub)

978-88-5518-580-6

Series Title

Connessioni. Studies in Transcultural History

Series ISSN

2975-0393

Series E-ISSN

2975-0261

259

Fulltext
downloads

331

Views

Export Citation

1,346

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,262

Book Chapters

3,790,127

Fulltext
downloads

4,420

Authors

from 923 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

65

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,248

Referees

from 381 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations