4to, (207 x 140 mm). 19 pp., plus later blanks. Later panelled blue calf ruled in blind and gilt, front board lettered in gilt. Light foxing throughout and light ink staining to p. 8, otherwise fine.

The embassy was an initiative of Alessandro Valignano, Visitador of Japan, and according to Boxer “fulfilled his double intention of attracting the attention of Christendom to the splendid progress the Jesuits were making in Japan, and of impressing the Japanese with the power and civilization of Catholic Europe.” The Tenshō Embassy departed from Nagasaki in 1582 and arrived in Lisbon in 1584. It comprised four young envoys: Mansho Ito and Miguel Chijiwa were the ambassadors representing three warlords, or daimyō (Ōtomo Sōrin, Omura Sumitada, and Arima Harunobu); they were accompanied by Julian Nakaura and Martino Hara, nobles from Nakaura and Hizen and two Japanese Jesuits, Costantino Dourado and Jorge de Loyola, who had studied printing in Goa and were to acquire further proficiency in printing techniques during their European sojourn, enabling them to print books in the Japanese language, in kana script, back in Japan.

In Spain the embassy was received by Philip II, in Florence by Grand Duke Francis I de’ Medici and in Rome by Pope Gregory XIII. A short time after the reception in Rome the pope died, and the envoys were able to attend the coronation of the new pope, Sixtus V.

Cordier, Japonica, 94; de Backer-Sommervogel, III, 1603; Streit, IV, p. 1619; Boxer, Christian Cent. in Japan, 73.