De rebus Iaponicis, Indicis et Peruanis epistolae recentiores.

A Joanne Hayo Dalgatttiensi Scoto Societatis Jesu in librum unum coacervatae. Antuerpiæ : Ex officina Martini Nutij, ad insigne duarum Ciconiarum, Anno M. DC. V. [Antwerp : Martin Nutius, 1605]. Octavo, fine Jesuit binding of full calf ruled in gilt with ornamental cornerpieces; upper board with central Jesuit device, lower board with heraldic crest; flat-panel spine tooled in gilt, contrasting red morocco title label; all edges gilt; pp 968, [46]; printer’s device on title page of two storks fighting over a snake with the motto ‘Pietas homini tvtissima virtus’; woodcut initials and tail-pieces; a few leaves browned; pale stain across upper section.

First edition of this compilation by Scottish Jesuit John Hay of fifty-five letters from missions in Japan, India, Peru, the East Indies and the Philippines, dated between 1577 and 1604. The section on Japan is the most substantial (the first 636 pages), and contains letters by notable Japanese Christians and by Frois, Cabral, Organtino and Valignano, including one of the earliest reports of the persecution of Christians in Japan. Approximately 200 pages are devoted to letters from missions in India (“Mogor”), the majority sent from Goa. There are also shorter sections containing letters from Peru and the Philippines.

It has been suggested that this volume was conceived as a companion to Nutius’ 1605 edition of Maffei’s Historiarum Indicarum: often bound in is Maffei’s Ignatii Loiolae vita (also published in 1605). Its compiler, John Hay, was expelled from Scotland in 1579 and fled to France, where he became rector of the Jesuit college at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine.

Cordier, Japonica, 246; de Backer-Sommervogel, IV, 165, 12; Palau, 112581; Alden, 605.57; Streit, V, p. 58 (with a detailed list of contents)