{"title":"Japan","description":"\u003cp\u003eJapanese history, literature, art and culture.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"frois-luis","title":"FROIS, Luis","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of these two important and detailed letters by Frois, the first concerning the state of the Christian leaders and Jesuit missions in Japan in 1595 and the second dealing with the death of Hidetsugu the nephew and retainer of Hideyoshi (referred to in this letter by his common name Taicosama). The Portuguese Jesuit Frois was one of the leading members of the Jesuit mission in Japan and his reports are highly esteemed for their attention to detail and concrete data. By the 1590 s the predominately Jesuit Christian mission in Japan had made considerable progress, with nearly three hundred thousand converts. Frois worked for some years under the Provincial of India in charge of reporting on East Asia to the church in Europe, and in 1563, at the age 31, he arrived in Japan, at Nagasaki. In 1565 he journeyed to Kyoto, but with the downfall of his protector, Ashikaga Yoshiteru, he was forced to take refuge in Sakai. In 1569 he met Nobunaga, (the first of the great Japanese Generals who nearly unified Japan under his leadership) and received permission to proselytize. He spent the ensuing years in missionary work while writing The History of Portuguese Territories in East India. In his capacity as interpreter he travelled widely in Japan, was party to much inside information on affairs of State and witnessed many of the events that shaped Japan for some 250 years. The first letter is a general review of the year recounting events of especial importance with respect to the Society, dealing with particular places and Jesuit residences, providing detailed accounts of their political, social and religious circumstances. The second work is an extraordinary account of the death of Hidetsugu who was nominally the regent of Japan or Kanpaku, though all power effectively resided with his uncle Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi had made Hidetsugu, his only relative, his heir, though with the birth of Hideyoshi s son in 1593 to his mistress, this situation became untenable. Finally, in 1595, Hidetsugu was accused of plotting a coup and ordered to commit suicide, his allies were banished and his children and mistresses executed, with the exception of his one month old daughter. Frois  account is particularly detailed and knowledgeable giving much detail on the complex political background to the events and paints a picture of Hideyoshi as a cruel and vindictive leader. A good copy of these important letters from a most important period in Japanese history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FROIS, Luis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816067014991,"sku":"L1081","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_1971.jpg?v=1781795329"},{"product_id":"acosta-emanuel-with-maffei-giovan-pietro","title":"ACOSTA, Emanuel [with] MAFFEI, Giovan Pietro","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of the first attempt to write a detailed history of the Jesuit missions in the East, especially in Japan, and one of the most important and diverse compilations of letters relating to the Jesuit mission in the Far East; prefaced by Acosta's important \"Commentarius\", the work includes some 39 letters dating from between 1548-1564, most of which relate to Japan. As early in the 1550 s influential Jesuits argued for an official synthesis of letters from the missions, motivated in part by the fear that someone else would do it for them, and in part to promote their enormous successes in the east. The text is based on a manuscript  Historia dos missiones do Oriente at é o anno de 1568  written by the Portuguese, Manuel da Costa. Da Costa, a Jesuit missionary and bibliographer who taught at Coimbra where most Jesuit letters were available in uncensored form. His manuscript was sent to Rome, translated into Latin, and was given to the young novice Giovanni Pietro Maffei (1533-1603) to prepare for publication. Maffei added the  De Japonicis rebus epistolarum  containing abridged Latin translations of letters sent from the Jesuits working in Japan until the year 1564. In his introduction Maffei congratulates Da Costa on his effort in summarizing the contents of the letters together in the commentary. Maffei was later to write the hugely successful  Historiarum Indicarum libri XVI , much praised for its excellent treatment of Japan. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The letters begin with the Japanese convert Paul's letter from Goa written in December 1548, followed by two famous letters of St. Francis Xavier published here for the first time. The first of these is written from Malacca in June 1549, the second on his arrival in Japan dated Kagoshima, November 1549. Letters by Frois (1532-1597), Vilela (1525-1572), and Almeida (1525-1583) are of particular interest in that they give much detail of Japanese religion, culture, and customs. This work was reprinted and translated many times, and made a significant contribution to early European perceptions of the east. A very good copy of the rare first edition of this seminal work that paints one of the earliest detailed pictures of Japan, from the Jesuit college in Mainz now the Johannes Gutenberg University.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ACOSTA, Emanuel [with] MAFFEI, Giovan Pietro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816110563663,"sku":"L1082","price":9500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Acosta-L1082-4.jpg?v=1781795309"},{"product_id":"meid_-zu-meitang-tu","title":"MEIDŌ ZU (MEITANG TU)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe title of the prints: Meid_(Illuminated hall) is derived from the name of the building in which the ancient Chinese Emperors conducted rituals and ceremonies related to cosmology. Here, the human body is the Meid , and a microcosm of the external world, the model and the image of the universe are depicted within it. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In the illustration of three views of the figure, there are twelve main  qi  energy channels (meridians) handcoloured in red, yellow, white, black, and blue, representing Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood, based on the traditional Chinese philosophy of  Wu Xing  (Five elements \/phases of the universe). The meridians and five phases combine and interact in a profound and complex manner. The invisible meridians run through the body, each corresponding to a particular organ, forming an intricate network of three hundred and forty-nine acu-moxa points, suggestive of constellations in the night sky. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The scrolls indicate the location of the acupuncture points and how deep the needle should go, as well as where to and not to apply moxibustion herbs to release or withhold energy. The classical Chinese text would not have been comprehensible to ordinary Japanese so these were designed for scholars. There was no public medical college in Japan at that time and many practising physicians also doubled as teachers, running small private medical schools alongside their practices. Hanging scrolls would have been eminently suited for both purposes. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n It was believed that acupuncture and moxibustion were introduced to Japan in the 5th century by the Korean immigrants. However, it was not incorporated into mainstream teaching until the 17th century when a large number of medical\/philosophy books were imported from China, and many highly skilled Chinese physicians sought sanctuary in Japan following the fall of the Ming dynasty. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n During the Edo period (1603   1868), Chinese philosophy and literature also flourished in Japan, and neo-Confucianism (Shushigaku) became the official doctrine for the ruling samurai government. From the evidence of these charts, Chinese medicines and Confucianism were likely taught side by side as they share the same roots   the belief that the function of the  qi  energy in the human body should be maintained in harmony and balance with the external world. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Many Confucian scholars in the Edo period became medical doctors, adapting their knowledge and skills to the profession as they were able to study medical text books written in Chinese. As the urban population grew, so did the demand for physicians, and Chinese medicine was now taught at private schools or homes. The charts such as these could well have been hung on the wall of the schools or at the doctors  practices. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Meido chart was modeled on a life-size bronze man with all the meridians and acu-moxa points drawn on the figure created in the Song dynasty (960   1279) in China, and therefore the charts are also called Meid d jin zu (Illuminated hall, bronze figures). Large printed figures such as these were used since the Ming dynasty (1368   1644). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The scrolls are the Japanese version of the Ming dynasty  Mingtang tu  with additional information, and are one of the earliest examples of Japanese single-sheet woodblock prints showing sophisticated printing skills, with meticulous details and vigorous lines, which subsequently evolved into early ukiyo-e (picture of floating world) prints in the late 17th century. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n From the collection of Jean Blondelet, the greatest French collector of rare medical books of the 20th century.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MEIDŌ ZU (MEITANG TU)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816166596943,"sku":"K131","price":27500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/2022-01-03-13.11.24.jpg?v=1781794870"},{"product_id":"jesuits-2","title":"[JESUITS].","description":"\u003cp\u003eScarce Japonicum including an account of the famous Japanese Tensh embassy and its introduction to the Pope. This is the second issue, the first dated 1597 on the t-p. This copy was probably never bound in anything else but paper wrappers; with its untrimmed fore-edge and partly crudely cut lower edge, it looks just as it would have done then, fresh from the press. Dating from 1585-95, the six orations, on subjects spanning papal funerals and theology, include one delivered by Gaspare Consalvi only published in this edition on the arrival of the Tensh embassy in Rome in 1585. First planned by the Jesuit Alessandro Valignano and headed by the nobleman Mancio It , it was sent by the Christian Lord tomo S rin in 1582. In the course of eight years, it visited Portugal, Spain and Italy, meeting Philip II, Francesco de  Medici, Pope Gregory XIII and, after his death in the same year as the oration was written, Sixtus V. Consalvi s oration introduced the legation to Gregory XIII remarking on the distance separating Japan and Rome, on the cultural differences, but also on the religious devotion of those new, remote Catholics. A scarce, important text.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[JESUITS].","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820342255951,"sku":"L3306(a)","price":2450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot-2024-08-06-at-15.03.48.webp?v=1781794838"},{"product_id":"astolfi-giovanni-felice","title":"ASTOLFI, Giovanni Felice.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very rare, fascinating work on worldwide popular cults of the Virgin Mary one of the earliest systematic works on the subject an Americanum and Japonicum unrecorded in major bibliographies. Felice Astolfi (f. 1603), of whom little is known, was the author of an important historical work ( Dell officina storica ) and of several on miracles, a very popular subject in Counter-Reformation print.  Historia universale  explores miracles and the popular cult of the Virgin Mary in the Old and New World, and in the Orient, through hundreds of fascinating anecdotes painstakingly drawn from Jesuit letters, and geographical and travel accounts like Botero s. The variable collation of the preliminaries reflects the troubled history of its printing in the Autumn of 1623; the present is an early issue, with a blank where later issues display an additional dedication or a shorter gathering.  Although [it] built on a long medieval tradition of devotional literature, the miracle stories took on new significance in the context of the early modern religious debates about the immanence of God. Astolfi addressed one of the major theological concepts debated in the early modern period: what is the proper role and function of miracles?  (D Andrea,  Miracles ). His narrative is especially concerned with the intercessory power of Marian images and their cult, and the immanence of God in physical objects. It begins with a life of Mary followed by a list of the relics (her body and clothing), with details of those preserved in Venetian churches. The first nine parts discuss the foundation of the earliest Marian churches and monasteries, accounts of miracles, the power of sacred images, iconoclasm, the miracles and local cult of specific images. From part 10 onwards are approx. 40 pages of accounts devoted to the wider world: Africa, where the Virgin makes Christian slaves escape the Moors  prison, miracles in Manomotapa, Ethiopia and Angola, Christian fights by land and sea against the Moors; India, where a man s rosary saves his sick, unchristened son, a bloody cross appears over the unburied body of a converted native, Monaian castle is reconquered after a procession, and Our Lady of Bengala is worshipped; the Caribbean, with a vessel haunted by demons at sea and saved by the Madonna of Guadalupe; Japan, with miracles during earthquakes, the miraculous healing of the sick in Bungo, the cult of Our Lady of Japan and Our Lady of Chitaoca, the burning of the Bonzi s idols, the Marian cult encouraged by the Queen of Tango, devotion in the city of Amangucci, exorcisms, four crosses appearing on a tree; Brazil, with the foundation of the church of Nostra Signora dell Aiuto, the conversion of a cannibal, the destruction of relics at the hand of Protestant colonists; Mexico, with praise for the natives  treatment of the sick and management of hospitals, a Marian apparition to the sick, the Virgin s feeding a sick woman; Peru, with the Marian cult in the mines of Potosi and a miracle against a demon pretending to offer help to miners, the care of the sick, the apparition of the Virgin to a dying native, the sad fate of a girl lying in confession, a healing prayer taught to a native; and China, with apparitions of the Virgin in the sky. Very scarce, fascinating and unusual.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ASTOLFI, Giovanni Felice.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820346515791,"sku":"L3457","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9373.jpg?v=1781794811"},{"product_id":"purchas-samuel-1","title":"PURCHAS, Samuel.","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmong the double-page maps – here remarkably fresh and clean, in very fine impression, with wide outer margins, and without repairs – shines Henry Briggs’ map of North America, produced by R. Elstracke before 1622. ‘The first printed map in English to show California as an island, it is one of the most important of the time. As a composite, place names are recorded reflecting the nationality of the discoverer, in English, French or Spanish’, with a note engraved in the map stating ‘California sometymes supposed to be a part of ye westerne continent, but since by a Spanish Charte taken by ye Hollanders it is found to be a goodly Ilande: the length of the west shoare beeing about 500 leagues’ (D. Rudderman Coll.). There is also a map of Virginia, published in 1606 after John Smith’s expedition, and one of Sir William Alexander’s voyages, illustrating New England, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The map of China – present in vols III and V – titled in English and Chinese characters, is derived ‘from Luo Hongxian’s general map in his “Guangyu Tu” atlas of 1555’, with the addition of inset pictures (Shirley II, p.1650).\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n\u003cp\u003eA fine set of the first edition of this most famous illustrated collection of travel narratives, together with the fourth ed. of ‘Purchas His Pilgrimage’ printed in 1626. The most complete early encyclopaedia of American travel, summarising all the major expeditions to North and South America up to the 1620s, from Columbus to William Hudson’s voyage on the Half-Moon, Smith’s expeditions to Virginia, and those carried out by the Spaniards and Dutch on the West Coast. It includes dozens of stunning engraved maps of North and South America, the North Pole, China, the Middle East, and Greenland, among others, as well as woodcut facsimile renditions of Arabic documents, Ottoman tughras, Mughal illumination, and illustrated Mesoamerican manuscripts. ‘Purchas obtained the use of the copperplates from Hondius’ “Atlas Minor” (1607) […]. The great majority of the maps are from this source, and are here printed as part of the text. […] Purchas had further maps engraved: these include maps of India, China, Greenland, North America and Nova Scotia.’\u003c\/p\u003e \n\n\u003cp\u003eSamuel Purchas (1577-1626) was a cleric in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Whilst he never travelled further than a few hundred miles from his native town, he edited a collection of unpublished manuscripts left to him by Richard Hakluyt (hence the second title ‘Hakluytus Posthumous’), to which he added reports of sailors returning from their travels. The result was ‘Purchas His Pilgrimes’. ‘This great geographical collection is a continuation and enlargement of Hakluyt’s “The Principal Navigations”. At the death of Hakluyt there was left a large collection of voyages in manuscript which came into the hands of Purchas, who added to them many more voyages and travels […]. Purchas followed the general plan of Hakluyt, but he frequently put the accounts into his own words […]. The main divisions of the work fall into two parts: the first covering the world known to Ptolemy, the second coming down to Purchas’ own day. This fine collection includes the accounts of Cortés and Pizarro, Drake, Cavendish, John and Richard Hawkins, Quiros, Magellan, van Noort, Spilbergen, and Barents, as well as the categories of Portuguese voyages to the East Indies, Jesuit voyages to China and Japan, East India Company voyages, and the expeditions of the Muscovy Company’ (Hill). The four vols examine ancient voyages, customs and languages (e.g., the peregrinations of the Apostles and Patriarchs), the circumnavigation of the globe, explorations in Africa, Arabia, Persia, and India, voyages to Japan, China, the Philippines, and expeditions to the Middle and Far East. The fifth vol., also on world exploration, is considered the ‘fourth and best ed.’ (Sabin) of another travel work published by Purchas in the 1610s, especially important for the accounts of William Hudson’s explorations in North America.\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n\u003cp\u003eThe double-page maps of North America are remarkably detailed on the coastal areas, showing the Hudson River, dozens of locations in California, Texas, Mexico, Newfoundland, New Britain, Canada, and the Caribbean. A highlight are the woodcut reproductions of unusual alphabets, e.g., hieroglyphs, ancient magical alphabets, and cabbalistic, as well as Arabic, Glagolitic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Dalmatian, and others. Purchas also included woodcut reproductions – among the earliest instances of facsimile in print – of Middle Eastern and South Asian documents (e.g., a letter in Arabic from Sharefoo Boobackar, King of Moyela; a letter in Bani, the Tughra of the Ottoman Sultan) and Ottoman seals, which he found among the East India papers he had access to thanks to acquaintances among the company’s directors. Astounding are the two dozen woodcuts reproducing Mexican illustrated manuscripts with detailed captions and explanations. ‘The idea of a visual compendium of all known examples of a given class of Mexican antiquities was first attempted by Purchas. […] He commissioned line drawings of manuscripts previously owned by Hakluyt and Thevet. […] After Purchas’ death, these manuscripts became part of the collection of John Selden, who bequeathed them, in turn, to the Bodleian Library’ (Miller, p.5).\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n \u003cp\u003eFrom the Library of the Admiralty Office overlooking Horse Guards, in Whitehall, formerly the administrative headquarter of the Royal Navy. A most appropriate provenance for a book of great voyages.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PURCHAS, Samuel.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868710609231,"sku":"L4539","price":97500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/purchas-1.jpg?v=1781793407"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/japanmap.jpg?v=1781798492","url":"https:\/\/www.sokol.co.uk\/collections\/japan.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}