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Envoys and Illusions: the Japanese embassy to Europe, 1582–90, De Missione Legatorvm Iaponensium , and the Portuguese viceregal embassy to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 1591

2005; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 15; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s1356186305005304

1474-0591

Derek Massarella,

Chinese history and philosophy

Abstract On 20 February 1582 when Alessandro Valignano, Visitor to the Jesuit missions in the East Indies (the geographical area from Goa eastwards, to Japan, and southwards, to the Indonesian archipelago) left Japan, the country had been in a state of civil war, (the sengoku jidai ) for more than a century. That was about to change. Oda Nobunaga had succeeded in uniting the central and western parts of Honshu under his rule and was intent on imposing his rule over the rest of the country. The Jesuits considered him if not quite a patron, then certainly someone sympathetic to Christianity and their mission in Japan. Yet on 22 June Nobunaga died, the victim of an attack by an ambitious rival, and ironically, considering the previous esteem in which he had been held, unlamented by the Jesuits who believed that during the final months of his life he had transformed himself into a megalomanic tyrant, a Nebuchadnezzar.