Lettera annua di Giappone scritta nel 1601.

e mandata dal P. Francesco Pasio V. Provinciale. al M.R.P. Claudio Acquaviva Generale della Compagnia di Giesù. Venice : Gio. Battista Ciotti sanese, 1604. Octavo, later papered boards, all edges gilt; pp. 77, [3 blank]; title with woodcut Jesuit device; occasional light foxing, a good copy.

The Jesuit annual report from Japan for 1601 was composed in Nagasaki by Father Francesco Pasio (1551-1612), who had arrived in Japan in 1584. It was sent to Claudio Acquaviva, Superior General of the Jesuit Society in Rome, where it was first published in 1603.

Father Pasio’s report was written in the wake of the Battle of Sekigahara, which had brought the civil wars of the Sengoku period to an end in October, 1600, and he describes the victorious Tokugawa Ieyasu’s reprisals against many of the recently converted Kirishitans. The report also contains accounts of contemporary Japanese society and cities including Nagasaki, Osaka, and Omura.

Cordier, BJ, 241