MISSIONARY MARTYRS IN JAPAN
SICARDO, José.
Christiandad del Japon, y dilatada persecucion que padecio. Memorias sacras, de los martyres de las ilustres religiones de Santo Domingo, San Francisco, Compañia de Jesus, y crecido numero de seglares, y con especialidad, de los religiosos del orden de N.P.S. Augustin …
Madrid, Francisco Sanz, 1698.
Folio, pp. [16], 448, [14]; title within border of type ornaments, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, text in two columns; water staining to lower third of leaves throughout with resultant slight cockling, otherwise very good; in modern black morocco (‘Brugalla 1948’ to front turn-in), double gilt fillet border to covers, spine in compartments lettered and tooled in gilt, gilt turn-ins and edges, marbled endpapers; boards slightly bowed.
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Christiandad del Japon, y dilatada persecucion que padecio. Memorias sacras, de los martyres de las ilustres religiones de Santo Domingo, San Francisco, Compañia de Jesus, y crecido numero de seglares, y con especialidad, de los religiosos del orden de N.P.S. Augustin …
Rare first edition of this important and comprehensive account of Christian missions to Japan by the Spanish Augustinian José Sicardo (1643–1715).
Divided into three books, the Christiandad del Japon opens with a description of Japan before detailing various embassies exchanged between Japan and the Philippines, the arrival of Augustinian missionaries on Japanese soil, their activities, and the persecution they and other Christians faced. Books two and three provide chronological biographies and lists of the extraordinary number of Christian missionary martyrs who died in Japan between 1617 and the 1640s. Sicardo joined the Order of Saint Augustine at Salamanca in 1659, and in 1667 went to Mexico, where he gained a doctorate at the university and served as prior of the convent at Oaxaca and visitor to the bishopric of Michoacán. In 1702 he was appointed Archbishop of Sassari in Sardinia.
OCLC records three copies in the US (Newberry Library, University of Texas, Yale) and Library Hub notes 3 in the UK (BL, Bodleian, Trinity College Dublin).
Cordier, Japonica 407; Medina, Biblioteca Hispano-Americana 1991; Palau 312228; Sabin 80832; Streit-Dindinger V, 1616.
