first edition Hardcover
1670 · London
by Montanus, Arnoldus (1625-1683); Ogilby, John (1600-1676), translator
London: printed by Tho[mas] Johnson for the author, 1670. FIRST ENGLISH EDITION (originally published in Dutch at Amsterdam in 1669). Hardcover. Fine. A fine, tall copy bound in contemporary calf, rebacked (corners bumped, wear to the extremities, some scuffs and scrapes to the boards, recent endpapers.) Profusely illustrated with an engraved title page, a folding engraved map showing the Tōkaidō road from Osaka to Edo (Tokyo) and the sea route from Osaka to Nagasaki; 24 folding double-page engraved views of Osaka, Miyako, Edo, Tsukishima and Kagoshima, and double-page illustrations (such as an earthquake, crucified Christians, and a temple scene). The text is illustrated with smaller engraved images depicting Japanese culture. The contents are in fine condition, with just a small hole on leaf R1 affecting one word, a few light marginal stains, a short marginal tear to leaf R2, and light browning to 6 plates. A detailed and extensive compilation of western accounts of Japan, largely compiled from sources in the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Jesuit sources and first published the previous year in Amsterdam. It is considered the first major English language work on Japan.
Montanus' Vivid Account of Japan:
"Portuguese trade with Japan ceased in 1639, and in 1640 the Dutch were moved to the little island of Deshima in Nagasaki harbor. Apart from the Dutch on Deshima, no Europeans traded in Japan after 1640. Fresh information about Japan also soon dried up. No new information appears to have been published before Montanus' work on Japan.
"Montanus' encyclopedic account contains more firsthand information about Japan than any other post-1650 publication. It is ostensibly an account of several Dutch East India Company embassies to the shogun's court in Edo, beginning with that of Blokovius and Frisius in 1649-50. His account is repeatedly interrupted to describe the landscape, history, customs and the like suggested by the experiences of the ambassadors...
"By the time his readers have completed the account of the embassy, they have also read the story of Japan's original settlement by rebellious Chinese who were banished there, a description of Japan's location and the speculation about whether or not it is joined to Hokkaido and the mainland, descriptions of Japanese religious sects and their priests, an account of the wars of unification, a history of the Christian mission and the persecutions, descriptions of specific towns, palaces, funeral practices and much more.
"The route of the ambassadors is given in detail, including the distances between towns. There are descriptions of several towns: Nagasaki, Hirado, Osaka, Sakai, Kyoto, Shizuoka, and Edo. These seem to be independent descriptions and contain new observations. Montanus describes a temple near Hirado where pregnant women go to pray for sons. Later he describes the castle at Hirado as an impressive structure on a hill in a pleasant meadow with a double-roofed gate and a seven-story tower. Deshima, Montanus reports, is a small island joined to the mainland at Nagasaki by a forty-foot drawbridge. Nagasaki presents a fine prospect to viewers on incoming ships because of its hills and many steeples and towers. Several streams flow through it, spanned by wooden bridges. The streets are unpaved and each has a gate that is closed at night. His description of Osaka contains details on the images seen in two temples (illustrated in the text.) Montanus' description of Edo, its palaces and temples is obviously a composite but his description of the shogun's palace may be new.
"On the road to Edo the Dutch ambassadors view Mount Fuji, which Montanus uses as an occasion to describe yamabushi who climb it once a year and stay on it for sixty days, fasting and beating themselves, after which they wear white knots around their necks and small black caps on their heads. After describing the dairi's palace in Miyako, Montanus observes that the Japanese have good poets and actors, and many plays, which teach virtue. The plays, he reports, have choruses of musicians. On another occasion he describes Japanese wrestlers, who wear their hair in nets, tie their pants up between their legs, and wear nothing above the waist -obviously sumo wrestlers. In Sakai, near Osaka, the Dutch watch a local religious festival. The singing crowd parades through the streets carrying their "idol" on their shoulders.
"The adventures of the crew of the "Breskens", the immediate occasion for the official embassy, are recounted in the second part of Montanus' book. The "Breskens" was one of two Dutch ships sent to explore the coast of Hokkaido in 1643. Driven north in a storm, the captain and nine of his crew were taken prisoner and conveyed to Edo for interrogation. They were held for five months before the director of the Dutch East India Company at Deshima came to Edo to plead their cause.
"Montanus' relation of the experiences of the "Breskens" crew vividly illustrates the paranoia of Japanese officials regarding Christianity during the early closed-country period. From the first day of their arrest until their release the Japanese tried to trick the Dutch into admitting that they were Catholic Christians. On two occasions they witnessed the interrogation under torture of four Jesuits as they were being led to their own interrogation. When they are finally released, they must sign a promise never to land Catholic priests in Japan. They receive an audience with shogun Iemitsu before leaving Edo.
"Frightened as they were, the captain, Henry Corneliszoon Schaep (or whoever actually wrote the account) included some rather good descriptive passages in his story. There are colorful descriptions of samurai dress: richly embroidered coats, underneath which hang others that display "their arms curiously wrought" Their long breeches drag the floor, swords hang at their sides, and their heads are shaven except for the nape of the neck and the topknot. Later, the author describes samurai armor. On the road they meet and describe musicians who travel about to entertain at feasts and weddings, "all whores and vagabonds". Curious crowds gather to look at the Dutchmen wherever they go and always ask them to sign their names on pieces of paper. They experience an earthquake, which some Japanese explain results from the sea monster striking its tail against the shore.
"The Dutchmen marvel at Edo's costly palaces. The author describes an Edo prostitute sitting under the eave of her house with food and drink ready for clients. Her kimono is tied so loosely that her nipples show, she wears flowers in her elaborate obi, and her hair hangs loose except for one lock in the back that is tied with ribbons. He also describes Japanese writing brushes, inkstones and ink. (The solid cakes of ink, red or black, all bear the shogun's seal. Brushes are held with the whole hand.) The account includes a list of Japanese words and phrases. Finally, there is an audience with the shogun... The remainder of Montanus' account deals with three later embassies, each of which contains substantial description with some interesting new material."(Lach)
The Jesuits in Japan: 1549-1641
Montanus' monumental work contains an extensive account of the activities of the Jesuits in Japan, including accounts of the arrival of St. Francis Xavier in 1549, the early proselytizing efforts of the Jesuit missionaries, the periodic suppression of Christians and the martyrdoms of the 1580s and 1590s, the final expulsion of the order from Japan in 1641, and the Jesuits' attempt to return in the 1650s.
Montanus gives a detailed account of the journey of Xavier, Cosme de Torres (d. 1570), and Fernandez from Goa to Japan aboard a Chinese ship. Montanus quotes at length from a number of the earliest Jesuit reports and letters, including Xavier's letter to St. Ignatius Loyola in 1549 and Torres' letter of 1557, in which he describes the customs and character of the Japanese people. There is also an account of the early missionary activities of Torres, Fernandez, and J.B. Montanus in Japan after Xavier's departure, including the composing of plays and songs in Japanese for teaching Christianity.
Montanus draws heavily on the works of Jesuit authors, in particular, on those of Cornelius Hazart. The accounts of other Jesuit authors such as Maffei and Acosta are cited for the information they provide on the topography, customs and history of Japan. The work also includes the fascinating details of Valignano's journey to Rome with several converted members of Japanese royalty. Upon their arrival in Rome, the Japanese visitors are given residence at the Jesuit College. There follows an account of the foreigners' audience with Pope Gregory XIII and a vivid description of the papal procession, in which the Japanese participate dressed in their native attire.
Montanus recounts the violence visited on Christians after the Emperor Taikosama's edict banishing the Jesuits from Japan in 1587. He also gives an account of the crucifixion of the Nagasaki Martyrs (among them three Japanese Jesuit catechists) at the orders of Hideyoshi 1596, and narrates the final expulsion of the Order in 1641 (for conspiring to bring Japan under the power of Portugal), an event that also marked the end of Portuguese trade with Japan, after which Japan became a closed society, conducting only limited trade with the Dutch.
It is in this new atmosphere that the Dutch embassies take place and it is in the context of these that we have our final encounter with the Jesuits. In the second part of Montanus' work, an account is given of four Jesuit priests, captured in 1641, who are tortured and relentlessly interrogated by the Japanese authorities. Their miserable and broken condition is described by sailors from the Dutch ship "Breskens", who are also being interrogated at Edo. When the four Jesuits are finally released, we learn that they had revealed, under torture, that the Jesuit order was planning to send missionaries to Japan secretly to undertake clandestine conversion of the Japanese people. (Inventory #: 5095)
Montanus' Vivid Account of Japan:
"Portuguese trade with Japan ceased in 1639, and in 1640 the Dutch were moved to the little island of Deshima in Nagasaki harbor. Apart from the Dutch on Deshima, no Europeans traded in Japan after 1640. Fresh information about Japan also soon dried up. No new information appears to have been published before Montanus' work on Japan.
"Montanus' encyclopedic account contains more firsthand information about Japan than any other post-1650 publication. It is ostensibly an account of several Dutch East India Company embassies to the shogun's court in Edo, beginning with that of Blokovius and Frisius in 1649-50. His account is repeatedly interrupted to describe the landscape, history, customs and the like suggested by the experiences of the ambassadors...
"By the time his readers have completed the account of the embassy, they have also read the story of Japan's original settlement by rebellious Chinese who were banished there, a description of Japan's location and the speculation about whether or not it is joined to Hokkaido and the mainland, descriptions of Japanese religious sects and their priests, an account of the wars of unification, a history of the Christian mission and the persecutions, descriptions of specific towns, palaces, funeral practices and much more.
"The route of the ambassadors is given in detail, including the distances between towns. There are descriptions of several towns: Nagasaki, Hirado, Osaka, Sakai, Kyoto, Shizuoka, and Edo. These seem to be independent descriptions and contain new observations. Montanus describes a temple near Hirado where pregnant women go to pray for sons. Later he describes the castle at Hirado as an impressive structure on a hill in a pleasant meadow with a double-roofed gate and a seven-story tower. Deshima, Montanus reports, is a small island joined to the mainland at Nagasaki by a forty-foot drawbridge. Nagasaki presents a fine prospect to viewers on incoming ships because of its hills and many steeples and towers. Several streams flow through it, spanned by wooden bridges. The streets are unpaved and each has a gate that is closed at night. His description of Osaka contains details on the images seen in two temples (illustrated in the text.) Montanus' description of Edo, its palaces and temples is obviously a composite but his description of the shogun's palace may be new.
"On the road to Edo the Dutch ambassadors view Mount Fuji, which Montanus uses as an occasion to describe yamabushi who climb it once a year and stay on it for sixty days, fasting and beating themselves, after which they wear white knots around their necks and small black caps on their heads. After describing the dairi's palace in Miyako, Montanus observes that the Japanese have good poets and actors, and many plays, which teach virtue. The plays, he reports, have choruses of musicians. On another occasion he describes Japanese wrestlers, who wear their hair in nets, tie their pants up between their legs, and wear nothing above the waist -obviously sumo wrestlers. In Sakai, near Osaka, the Dutch watch a local religious festival. The singing crowd parades through the streets carrying their "idol" on their shoulders.
"The adventures of the crew of the "Breskens", the immediate occasion for the official embassy, are recounted in the second part of Montanus' book. The "Breskens" was one of two Dutch ships sent to explore the coast of Hokkaido in 1643. Driven north in a storm, the captain and nine of his crew were taken prisoner and conveyed to Edo for interrogation. They were held for five months before the director of the Dutch East India Company at Deshima came to Edo to plead their cause.
"Montanus' relation of the experiences of the "Breskens" crew vividly illustrates the paranoia of Japanese officials regarding Christianity during the early closed-country period. From the first day of their arrest until their release the Japanese tried to trick the Dutch into admitting that they were Catholic Christians. On two occasions they witnessed the interrogation under torture of four Jesuits as they were being led to their own interrogation. When they are finally released, they must sign a promise never to land Catholic priests in Japan. They receive an audience with shogun Iemitsu before leaving Edo.
"Frightened as they were, the captain, Henry Corneliszoon Schaep (or whoever actually wrote the account) included some rather good descriptive passages in his story. There are colorful descriptions of samurai dress: richly embroidered coats, underneath which hang others that display "their arms curiously wrought" Their long breeches drag the floor, swords hang at their sides, and their heads are shaven except for the nape of the neck and the topknot. Later, the author describes samurai armor. On the road they meet and describe musicians who travel about to entertain at feasts and weddings, "all whores and vagabonds". Curious crowds gather to look at the Dutchmen wherever they go and always ask them to sign their names on pieces of paper. They experience an earthquake, which some Japanese explain results from the sea monster striking its tail against the shore.
"The Dutchmen marvel at Edo's costly palaces. The author describes an Edo prostitute sitting under the eave of her house with food and drink ready for clients. Her kimono is tied so loosely that her nipples show, she wears flowers in her elaborate obi, and her hair hangs loose except for one lock in the back that is tied with ribbons. He also describes Japanese writing brushes, inkstones and ink. (The solid cakes of ink, red or black, all bear the shogun's seal. Brushes are held with the whole hand.) The account includes a list of Japanese words and phrases. Finally, there is an audience with the shogun... The remainder of Montanus' account deals with three later embassies, each of which contains substantial description with some interesting new material."(Lach)
The Jesuits in Japan: 1549-1641
Montanus' monumental work contains an extensive account of the activities of the Jesuits in Japan, including accounts of the arrival of St. Francis Xavier in 1549, the early proselytizing efforts of the Jesuit missionaries, the periodic suppression of Christians and the martyrdoms of the 1580s and 1590s, the final expulsion of the order from Japan in 1641, and the Jesuits' attempt to return in the 1650s.
Montanus gives a detailed account of the journey of Xavier, Cosme de Torres (d. 1570), and Fernandez from Goa to Japan aboard a Chinese ship. Montanus quotes at length from a number of the earliest Jesuit reports and letters, including Xavier's letter to St. Ignatius Loyola in 1549 and Torres' letter of 1557, in which he describes the customs and character of the Japanese people. There is also an account of the early missionary activities of Torres, Fernandez, and J.B. Montanus in Japan after Xavier's departure, including the composing of plays and songs in Japanese for teaching Christianity.
Montanus draws heavily on the works of Jesuit authors, in particular, on those of Cornelius Hazart. The accounts of other Jesuit authors such as Maffei and Acosta are cited for the information they provide on the topography, customs and history of Japan. The work also includes the fascinating details of Valignano's journey to Rome with several converted members of Japanese royalty. Upon their arrival in Rome, the Japanese visitors are given residence at the Jesuit College. There follows an account of the foreigners' audience with Pope Gregory XIII and a vivid description of the papal procession, in which the Japanese participate dressed in their native attire.
Montanus recounts the violence visited on Christians after the Emperor Taikosama's edict banishing the Jesuits from Japan in 1587. He also gives an account of the crucifixion of the Nagasaki Martyrs (among them three Japanese Jesuit catechists) at the orders of Hideyoshi 1596, and narrates the final expulsion of the Order in 1641 (for conspiring to bring Japan under the power of Portugal), an event that also marked the end of Portuguese trade with Japan, after which Japan became a closed society, conducting only limited trade with the Dutch.
It is in this new atmosphere that the Dutch embassies take place and it is in the context of these that we have our final encounter with the Jesuits. In the second part of Montanus' work, an account is given of four Jesuit priests, captured in 1641, who are tortured and relentlessly interrogated by the Japanese authorities. Their miserable and broken condition is described by sailors from the Dutch ship "Breskens", who are also being interrogated at Edo. When the four Jesuits are finally released, we learn that they had revealed, under torture, that the Jesuit order was planning to send missionaries to Japan secretly to undertake clandestine conversion of the Japanese people. (Inventory #: 5095)
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