Dictionarium sive thesauri linguae Iaponicae compendium …

Romae typis & impensis Sacr. Congr. de Prop. Fide, MDCXXXII [1632]; [bound with] Ars Grammaticae Iaponicae linguae … Romae typis & impensis Sacr. Congr. de Prop. Fide, MDCXXXII [1632]; [and bound with] Niffon no Cotōbani yô confesion, … [= modus confitendi et examinandi poenitentem Japonensem, formula suamet lingua Japonica … ] Romae typis & impensis Sacr. Congr. de Prop. Fide, MDCXXXII [1632].

Quarto, contemporary vellum over boards; pp 1-158, [159-160 blank], 161-354 (Additiones ad Dictionarium Iaponicum); 75, 66; title page of each work with woodcut printer’s device; title of first work with early ownership inscription at lower margin; printed in double columns; text in Latin, Spanish and Japanese; all fine copies, fresh and clean throughout; housed in a custom clamshell box, red morocco, richly gilt.

Three important works by Diego Collado, all printed in Rome at the press of the Propaganda Fide (Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith). Soon after the Propaganda was founded in 1622, it established its own press. Known colloquially as the Polyglotta, from 1626 this press was responsible for a large number of publications in a total of 23 different languages, including Arabic, Coptic, Syriac, Chaldean, Japanese and Ethiopic, creating fonts for many non-Latin scripts. It produced translations of religious material, such as the Scriptures and the Catholic liturgy, as well as dictionaries and grammars of the indigenous languages spoken in the many different locations where Catholic missionaries were active. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Propaganda Fide press was a powerful rival to the various Protestant missionary presses.

The Spanish-born Dominican missionary Diego Collado arrived in Japan in 1619. He denounced the now famous work Spiritual Shugyō – one of the most significant works printed by the Jesuit Mission Press at Nagasaki – by reporting it to the Roman Index Commission in 1630. His linguistic works on the Japanese language, along with his confessional in Japanese, were the earliest works in Japanese to be printed in Europe. They were, however – in spite of Collado’s antagonism towards the Jesuits – based on another of the Jesuit Mission Press’ printings, the Arte da lingoa de Iapam, completed in 1608 by the Jesuit missionary scholar João Rodriguez.

Palau 57567, 57563; Cordier (Bibl. Japonica) 325

We can locate no copy of Niffon no Cotōbani yô confesion offered for sale at auction in the last 100 years.