Alcune lettere delle cose del Giappone. Dell’anno 1579. insino al 1581.

Rome : Francesco Zannetti, 1584. Octavo, recent morocco in period style; edges stained red; pp. 159, [1 errata]; title with woodcut Jesuit device, and with an early ownership inscription; marginal damp stain to top outer corners (not affecting text), a few short passages with early underlining, otherwise clean throughout, a good copy.

The first printing of the first edition (with the uncorrected title and with the errata on the verso of the last leaf) of a very early collection of seven reports and letters written by Jesuit missionaries during the final period of the rule of Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), the first Great Unifier of Japan. The authors include Francesco Carrion (annual report for 1579), Lorenze Mexia (annual report for 1580), Luís Fróis (three letters), Francesco Cabral (one letter), and Gregorio de Céspedes (one letter).

Cordier, BJ, 74 (noting only the second printing, with Scritte da’ Reverendi Padri della Compagnia di Iesu in the second part of the title; Streit IV, 1607; Laures, 150