1 Jorge Alvarez, ‘Esta hé a informaçāo do Japāo que deu Jorge Alvarez’, prepared at the request of Francis Xavier (Malacca, c. December 1546 – December 1547), 1551 copy in the Roman Archive of the Society of Jesus in: Ruiz-de-Medina, Juan SJ ed., Documentos del Japon, 1547–1557, Monumenta Historica Japoniae 2: Monumenta Missionum Societatis Iesu 52: Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu 137 (Rome 1990) doc. 1, 1–24.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 19–21.

3 See the letter from Francis Xavier to the Jesuits of Rome, Cochin, 20 January 1548 in: Georg Schurhammer SJ and Joseph Wicki SJ ed., Epistolae S. Francisci Xaverii aliaque eius scripta I (1535–1548), Missiones Orientales, Monumenta Missionum Societatis Iesu 1: Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu 67 (Rome 1944) no. 59, 392. There is no doubt that Alvarez is meant by ‘un mercador portogués, amigo mío’. The portions of this letter that refer to Japan are included in Ruiz-de-Medina, Documentos del Japon, doc. 2, 24–30 (see p. 28), and more than forty of Xavier's other letters are also excerpted or included in their entirety in this collection. In general, however, Epistolae remains the superior source on account of its far more elaborate bibliographical apparatus.

4 Ruiz-de-Medina, Documentos del Japon, editorial remarks to Alvarez, ‘Esta hé a informaçāo’, 1–2.

5 Alvarez, ‘Esta hé a informaçāo’, 4–5; the editor's punctuation appears arbitrary. Compare the 1548 (?) copy of Alvarez' ‘Information’ in the Biblioteca Municipal de Elvas Mss. 5/381, ‘Mais emformaçāo das cousas do Japāo’, transcription by Pires, A. Thomaz in ‘O Japāo no seculo XVI’ pt. 2, O Instituto 54 (1907) 54Google Scholar: ‘amamgoāo porte omde eu estiue quamguasuma’. At least one of the several near-contemporary copies of Alvarez' report ties the ‘port where I was’ directly to Kagoshima; see Yoshitomo, Okamoto, Nagasaki kaikōizen Ōhaku raiō kō (Tokyo 1932) 88.Google Scholar

6 On the ‘trade called bafan’ and Satsuma's role in it, see Elisonas, Jurgis, ‘The Inseparable Trinity: Japan's Relations with China and Korea’ in: Hall, John Whitney and McClain, James L. eds, The Cambridge History of Japan IV: Early Modern Japan (Cambridge 1991) 249–262Google Scholar. Bafan is the contemporary Portuguese spelling of a Sino-Japanese term now romanized bahan. Wakō is pronounced wo-k'ou in Chinese and waegu in Korean.

7 Alvarez, ‘Esta hé a informaçāo’, 5.

8 Ibid., 11, 13, and 15 respectively.

9 Ibid., 18.

10 Nicolò Lancillotto SJ, ‘first report’ on Japan compiled for Ignatius Loyola, General SJ, third draft, autograph (Cochin, 28 December 1548): ‘In questo quaderno se contene la informatione de una insula che se è discoperta novamente nella parte setentrionale, chiamata Giapan’ in: Ruiz-de-Medina, Documentos del Japon, doc. 8, 44–69; see p. 47 for Ruiz-de-Medina's editorial comments on Lancillotto. Note that the several drafts and variants of this report differ not only in the detail they present but also in the rhetorical order of their presentation; in particular, compare the copy in Elvas Mss. 5/381 (mentioned but not utilized by Ruiz-de-Medina), ‘Emformaçāo da Ilha de Japāo dada por mestre framçysquo que soube de pesoas muy autemtiquas pryncypalmente de huū Japāo se tornou crystāo nesta cydade de Goa homē de gramde ēgenho e abelydade’; ‘O Japāo no seculo XVI’ pt. 1, O Instituto 53 (1906) 758–765.Google Scholar

11 Lancillotto, ‘In questo quaderno’, 50–52.

12 ‘Io son solo nel cielo e nella terra’, ibid., 52; a slightly inaccurate translation of the famous declaration rendered in Japanese as ‘Tenjō tenge yuiga dokuson’ (Above the heavens and below, I alone am the sole Honoured One).

13 Ibid., 53–55: ‘Quasi tutte le sue regole sonno conforme alle nostre’.

14 Ibid., 68–69: ‘aparuit in are super nubem candidam, hillari vultu et aspectu mirabili. Et sic evolavit ad coelos et numquam amplius visus est’. Not found in ‘Emformaçāo da Ilha’.

15 Francis Xavier to Simon Rodrigues SJ in Portugal, Cochin, 2 February 1549, Epistolae S. Francisci Xaverii II (1549–1552), Missiones Orientales, Monumenta Missionum Societatis Iesu 2: Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu 68 (1945) no. 79, 71.

16 Compare, for instance, ‘The Legend of the Buddha Shakyamuni’ in: Buddhist Scriptures (selected and translated by Edward Conze; Harmondsworth 1959) 34–66.

17 Lancillotto, ‘In questo quaderno’, 53–54. Compare ‘Emformaçāo da Ilha’, where this information is divided into two parts, 761 and 762.

18 Ruiz-de-Molina, Documentos del Japon, 54, n. 10, identifies ‘Cosci’ with Kōshi – a three-headed Confucius! – but that is utterly implausible. ‘Emformaçāo da Ilha’, 761, writes this name ‘cogy’ and ‘co ni gy,’ but the latter is a mistaken transcription of the original ‘co ny gy’ in Elvas Mss. 5/381.

19 Excellent illustrations and a compendious explanation of this type of sculptural mandala of the Shingon sect will be found in Bernard Frank, Le panthéon bouddhique au Japon: Collections d'Emile Guimet (Paris 1991) 163–185. Also see ibid., 72–77, for an excellent introduction to the story of the life of the Buddha and its iconography.

20 Ryūken, Sawa ed., Mikkyō jiten (third printing; Kyoto 1979) 1–2, 9, 569–570, 644–645, 458–459, 589–591, 181–182, 101–102, 245–246, 650, 667, and 532–533 respectivelyGoogle Scholar. The Sanskrit names of these deities are Rāga, Asura, Hayagrīva, Brahmā, Mahākāla, Amoghapāśa, Trailokyavijaya, Nandikeśvara, Vajrayaksa, Mārīcī, Aparājita, and Nārayāna respectively.

21 See Kakuzenshō (compiled 1176–1213 by the Shingon priest Kakuzen) pt. 1 in: Takakusu Junjirō et al. eds, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō zuzō IV (Tokyo 1933) fasc. 3, 389. Among the authorities cited by Kakuzen are the sutra Kongōchō yugachū ryakushutsu nenju-kyō in: Takakusu Junjirō et al. eds, Taishō shinshū daizōkyo XVIII (Tokyo 1961) no. 866, pt. 1, 227; and the commentary Kongōchōkyō dai yuga himitsu shinji hōmon giketsu in: ibid. XXXIX (1964) no. 1798, 814–815. The Tendai priest Chōen (1016–1081), a representative of the esoteric branch of his sect, also gives evidence regarding the four-faced depiction of Mahāvairocana; see Shijū-jō ketsu in: ibid. LXXV (1972) no. 2408, pt. 15, 955.

22 Kakuzenshō, 389: ‘Someone said’ that such an image was to be found in the sutra store of the Ryūkōin, a temple in the Shingon sect's mountain monastery on Kōyasan.

23 Bunce, Fredrick W., An Encyclopaedia of Buddhist Deities, Demigods, Godlings, Saints and Demons: With Special Focus on Iconographic Attributes I (New Delhi 1994) 572–573Google Scholar, Emerging Perceptions in Buddhist Studies 1, mentions two three-faced images of tantric forms of Vairocana ‘found in the Pao Hsiang Lou temple of the Forbidden City, Beijing’. It is unlikely that these tantric forms would have been known in sixteenth-century Japan.

24 Akyūbō Hōin Sokuden, ‘Hikosan buchū kanjō mitsuzō’ (Eiroku 1: 1558) in: Hensankai, Nihon Daizōkyō ed., Shugendō shōsho 2: Hōsokurui, Nihon daizōkyō XXXVII (Tokyo 1919) 71–72Google Scholar. Sokuden (fl. 1509–1558), agrand prefect (dai sendatsu) of Hikosan Shugendō who was a prolific author, is the source of much invaluable information on the mountain religion of sixteenth-century Japan.

25 Georg Schurhammer SJ discussed them in some detail in his 1928 monograph, Das Kirchliche Sprachproblem in der Japanischen Jesuitenmission des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Tokyo 1928), Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Vōlkerkunde Ostasiens 23 (1928) see especially 27–30. Elisonas, Compare J., ‘Christianity and the Daimyo’ in: Hall, John Whitney and McClain, James L. eds, The Cambridge History of Japan IV: Early Modern Japan (Cambridge 1991) 307–310.Google Scholar

26 Lancillotto, ‘In questo quaderno’, 55–56.

27 Ibid., 60–61.

28 Ibid., 57–58.

29 Ibid., 60.

30 Ibid., 58. Compare ‘Emformaçāo da Ilha’, 765, which specifies that in thus blessing themselves ‘as we do’, the Japanese make nine signs of the cross, ‘fazem nove cruzes a man.^ra da aspa de samtamder’.

31 Iinkai, Shuchiin Daigaku Mikkyō Gakkai-nai Mikkyō Daijiten Saikan ed., Mikkyō Gakkai Kaitei zōho Mikkyō daijiten I (second printing; Kyoto 1974) 332Google Scholar, s.v. ‘kuji’. In Shugendō the nine elements of the formula are associated with the powers of various Buddhist deities and with energies emanating from the stars; several variant schemata may be found in Shugen jinpi gyōhō fuju shū (compiled by Nakano Tatsue, c. 1919, on the basis of materials from the late mediaeval – early Tokugawa era) pt. 6, nos. 194–202 in: Hensankai, Nihon Daizōkyō ed., Shugendō shōsho 2: Hōsokurui, Nihon daizōkyō XXXVII, 224–228Google Scholar.

32 Lin-ping-tou-che-chieh-chin-lieh-ch'ien-hang in Chinese. See Ko Hung, Pao-p'u Tzu nei wai p'ien, Pai-pu Ts'ung-shu Chi-cheng, ser. 42, case 7, fasc. 3 (Taipei 1967) Nei-p'ien 17: ‘Tengshe’, ff. 5v-6r; compare Alchemy, Medicine, Religion in the China of A.D. 320: The Nei P'ien of Ko Hung (Pao-p'u tzu) (tr. Ware, James R.; Cambridge 1966) 287Google Scholar, although Ware's translation, erratic overall, is anything but persuasive in this passage.

33 Wakamori Tarō has brought up the theme of such an initiation more than once, e.g. in ‘Yama to oni’, ch. ii of Sangaku shinkō to chihō shugen, Wakamori Tarō chosakushū II: Shugendōshi no kenkyū (Tokyo 1980) 358–359Google Scholar.

34 Lancillotto, ‘In questo quaderno’, 65. The chapels are ‘como sonno quelle meiste delle che se acostumano per le strade de Italia’. The ‘Glossary’ in Dunkerton, Jill et al. , Giotto to Dūrer: Early Renaissance Painting in The National Gallery (New Haven and London 1991) 389Google Scholar, has a precise definition of meiste s.v. Maestà: ‘Italian, majesty. An image of the Virgin Mary enthroned as Queen of Heaven, surrounded by angels and sometimes saints’.

35 See Lancillotto, ‘In questo quaderno’, 65–66, and compare ‘Emformaçāo da Ilha’, 763–764 (quotation from p. 763).

36 Lancillotto, ‘In questo quaderno’, 66–67, and ‘Emformaçāo da Ilha’, 763–764.

37 Ibid., 764; save for the last detail, the particulars are omitted from Lancillotto's ‘In questo quaderno’, 67.

38 See the chart set out by Tarō, Wakamori, Yamabushi: nyūbu, shugyō, juhō (Tokyo 1964) 177–195Google Scholar; Chūkō Shinsho 48.

39 See Rizō, Takeuchi ed., Kadokawa Nihon chimei daijiten XL: Fukuoka-ken (Tokyo 1991) 1133Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Hikosan (Soeda-machi)’ and pp. 1134–1135, s.v. ‘Hikosan Jingū; also see Ibid., p. 1176, s.v. ‘Fukuchiyama’ and pp. 1216–1217, s.v. ‘Hōmanzan’. Mount Hiko, located in what is now the township of Soeda, Fukuoka Prefecture, has three crests; the apex is the southern crest, 1,200 metres above sea level. Fukuchiyama (901 m.), the northern outpost of the Hikosan pilgrimage circuit, is situated in Kokura Minami-ku, Kita Kyūshū City. Hōmanzan (869 m.), the western outpost, is on the border between the cities of Dazaifu and Chikushino.

40 The clearest layout of the pilgrimage circuit of Hikosan is found in Hikosan shugen saihi injin kuketsu shū (compiled by Nakano Tatsue, c. 1919, on the basis of Tokugawa-period materials) in: Hensankai, Nihon Daizōkyō ed., Shugendō shōsho 2: Kyōgirui, Nihon daizōkyō XXXVIIGoogle Scholar; see 526–527 for the list of the way stations and 531–533 for the characterization of the exercise terrain in terms of the mandalas of the Womb and Diamond realms. For a more detailed, annotated exposition of the topography of the pilgrimage in terms of those mandalas (with Ōminesan as the model), see the classical Shugendō text Shozan engi (12th–13th cent.?) in: Tokutarō, Sakurai, Tatsuo, Hagiwara and Noboru, Miyata eds, Jisha engi (Tokyo 1975) 90–102Google Scholar (original kanbun, 342–347) and supp. nn., 372–380; Nihon Shisō Taikei 20.

41 The ascetic exercises and the symbolism of the mountain pilgrimage are described sensitively and expertly by Earhart, H. Byron in A Religious Study of the Mount Haguro Sect of Shugendō: An Example of Japanese Mountain Religion (Tokyo 1970) 111–146Google Scholar, Monumenca Nipponica Monograph; and by Blacker, Carmen in The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan (2nd ed.; London 1986) 208–234Google Scholar. Earhart's highly detailed chapter is in essence an account of his participation in the ‘mountain peak’ of Mount Haguro, one of the Dewa Sanzan, in 1963, an experience shared by Blacker. Her treatment of the topic is more general, however, as it incorporates her experience of other pilgrimages to Haguro and to Yoshino in the 1960s and 1970s.

42 On the ‘ascetic exercises of the ten worlds within the peak’ (buchū jikkai shugyō) as they were undertaken at Hikosan in the first half of the sixteenth century, see Sokuden, Hikosan buchū kanjo mitsuzō, 77; idem, Sanbu sōshè hōsoku mikki (Taiei 5: 1525) in: Hensankai, Nihon Daizōkyō ed., Shugendō shoshō 2: Kyōgirui, Nihon daizōkyō, XXXVII, 487Google Scholar; also see Sokuden ed., Shugendō shuyō hiketsu shū (attributed to Rengaku) c. 1521–1528, Ibid., 388–389.

43 On fasting and the practice of tree-eating, see Blacker, The Catalpa Bow, 85–91.

44 Wakamori, Yamabushi, 85.

45 On this ceremony and its various components, see Hitoshi, Miyake ed., Shugendō jiten (Tokyo 1986)Google Scholar s.v. ‘;shō kanjō’ (p. 204), ‘shido kanjō’ (p. 166), and ‘kanjō’ (p. 71); ‘hashiramoto’, ‘hashiramoto goma’, and ‘hashiramoto no dangu ’(pp. 303–305); and ‘nyūmoku’ (p. 294). These articles are all by Fukushima Kunio.

46 Blacker, The Catalpa Bow, 228, calls it ‘embryo symbolism’ and discusses it concurrently with the symbolism of the ten worlds on 220–231. Also see Earhart, A Religious Study, 112–117, 127–130, and 139–141.

47 Blacker notes that fire-walking ‘is the one feat in the yamabushi's ancient magic repertory which may still be seen practised in many places in Japan’; Blacker, The Catalpa Bow, 250–251 and plates 20–23. Earhart, A Religious Study, 139–144, treats the saitō goma of Haguro's ‘fall peak’ in some detail. Fukushima Kunio remarks on the similarity of this contemporary fire rite and the sixteenth-century ritual described by Sokuden in Sanbu sōshō hōsoku mikki; see Miyake Hitoshi ed., Shugmdō jiten, 139, s.v. ‘saitō goma’. Depending on the season, one hundred and eight kogi were required.

48 Sokuden, Sanbu sōshō hōsoku mikki, 469 and 479 respectively.

49 Wakamori, Yamabushi, 81.

50 Sokuden, Sanbu sōshō hōsoku mikki, 469. A similar quincunx is described by Blacker, The Catalpa Bow, 219.

51 Lancillotto, ‘In questo quademo’, 62.

52 Ibid., 61–63. Compare the variant text of ‘Emformaçao da Ilha’, 758–759; quoted and discussed in Elisonas, ‘Christianity and the Daimyo’, 311–312.

53 Lancillotto, ‘In questo quaderno’, 63–64.

54 Ibid., 63.

55 ‘Emformaçāo da Ilha’, 765. Not found in Lancillotto, ‘In questo quaderno’.

56 On the cross (jūmonji or jūjika) in Japanese armourial bearings, in particular those of the Shimazu family, see Yorisuke, Numata, Nihon monshōgaku (Tokyo 1968) 1279–1287Google Scholar. Numata dismisses the idea that the provenance of the Japanese heraldic device may, however distantly, be Christian (sc. Chinese Nestorian). Rather, he views the emblem as a common, cross-cultural magical sign, one historically used throughout Japan and in other countries as a charm to avert evil. See the comparative study by Mamoru, Mori, Yōroppa no monshō Nihon no monshō (Tokyo 1982) 76–89Google Scholar; NHK Bukkusu (Karā-han) C20.

57 Lancillotto, ‘In questo quaderno’, 68.

58 In any event, these accounts are far more important than the brief and muddled seaman's tale transmitted in García de Escalante Alvarado's ‘Relación del viaje que hizo desde la Nueva España a las Islas del Poniente Ruy López de Villalobos (dated Lisbon, 1 August 1548). This ‘Relation’, the account of a voyage that took place between 1542 and 1546, includes an ‘oral report’ on Japan that Escalante heard from the Galician seafarer Pero Diez on the island of Tidore in 1545; excerpted as ‘Relacion sobre Japon por García de Escalante Alvarado’ in Documenlos del Japon, 1547–1557, Appendix 2, 747–750.

Note that Lancillotto compiled a ‘second report’ on Japan for Governor García de Sá of Goa (Goa 1548; Elvas Mss. 5/381); see Ibid., doc. 9, 92–94; also in O Iutituto 53(1906) 765–768. Its purpose is stated by the author in the very first sentence: The ‘first report’ had to do with religious matters; this one deals with secular themes. Brief accounts of the Japanese manner of waging war and conducting business are included. There is some duplication with the ‘first report’.

59 There is a voluminous scholarly literature on Postel, much of it produced by Francois Secret, whose contributions are too many to list singly. Three biographical studies ought to be consulted: Bouwsma, William J., Concordia Mundi: The Career and Thought of Guillaume Postel (1510–1581) (Cambridge 1957)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Harvard Historical Monographs 33; Kuntz, Marion L., Guillaume Postel: Prophet of the Restitution of All Things, His Life and Thought (The Hague 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, International Archives of the History of Ideas 98; and Weill, Georges, Vie el caractere de Guillaume Postel (Milan 1987)Google Scholar, translated with extensive glosses by Secret, F. from De Gulielmi Postelli vita el indole (Ph D dissertation; Paris 1892)Google Scholar Itineraires 4. Bibliographical works include Postel, Claude, Les écrits de Guillaume Postel publiés en France et leurs éditeurs 1538–1579 (Geneva 1992)Google Scholar, Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance 265 and Secret, F., Bibliographie des mnmtscrils de. Guillaume Poslel (Geneva 1970)Google Scholar, Études de Philologie et d'Histoire 16.

60 Secret, F., Les kabbalistes Chrétiens de la Renaissance (Paris 1964) 171–172Google Scholar, Collection Sigma 5.

61 Eco, Umberto, Europa en de volmaakte tool (Amsterdam 1995) 81–82Google Scholar. (La ricerca delta lingua perfetta nella cultura europea, 1993).

62 See Kuntz, Guillaume Poslel, 28–30, and Claude Postel, Les écrits. Book 1, 12–13, on Guillaume Postel's early academic appointments. It is difficult to say exactly what rank he bore: In 1540 he called himself a royal interpreter of mathematics. On the title page of Dr. magifiratibus Atheniensium, a book published in 1541, he figures as a Regius Professor of Mathematics, but the dedication is signed by a royal interpreter of mathematics and peregrine languages, two academic ranks lower.

63 Guillaunie Postel, ‘La nouvelle Eve Mere du Monde’, Bibliothèque Nationale manuscript copy in: idem, Apologies el rétractions (Nieuwkoop 1972) 38, Bibliotheca Humanistica & Reformatorica 3, with introduction and annotation by F. Secret.

64 See the edifying message addressed to the ‘nurslings of the Society of Jesus’, a composite of accounts dating from March 1543 to June 1544, in Loyola, Epislolae et inslmctiones I, Monumenta Ignatiana, ser. 1, Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu (Madrid 1903) no. 62, 252; also see Peter Faber SJ to Postel, dated Evora, 3 December 1544, in Baili Petri Fabri primi sacerdotis e Socielateje.su epistolae, memorials et processus, Fabri Monumenta. Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu (Madrid 1914) no. 93, 280–284.

65 Loyola to Claude le Jay SJ, dated Rome, 12 December 1545, Epistolae et instnictiones I, no. 103, 344–345. de Polanco, Juan Alfonso SJ, Chronicon Societatis jesu in Vila Ignatii Loyolae el remm Societatis Jesu hisloria I, Historia Societatis Jesu, Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu (Madrid 1894) 148–149Google Scholar.

66 Weill, Vie et caractère de. Guillaume Postel, 66–67 (gloss by Secret).

67 On Postel's Venetian period, see Kuntz, Guillaume Postel, 69–77, and Ellero, Giuseppe, ‘Postel e Venezia’ in: Jean-Claude Margolin, Guillaume Postel 1581–1981 (Paris 1985) 23–28Google Scholar, Actes du Colloque International d'Avranches 5–9 septembre 1981.

68 Synopsized from ‘La nouvelle Eve Mere du Monde’ in: Postel, Apologies et rétractions, 37–39.

69 See Ibid., 20, title of the Aix-en-Provence manuscript copy of ‘La nouvelle Eve’, which includes the following:

Livre de la divine ordonnance auquel est contenue en brief la raison de la divine el eternelle disposition, et la cause pourquoy celluy qui fut jadis Guillaume Postel, et maintenant est immué, doibt susciter en la Gaule l'éternelle Monarchic pour laquelle eriger Dieu ha créé le monde, et lha jusques à présent conservé … [herrew text for: The author is Jechochannan Cain the Reborn, the spiritual son of Jesus the Messias: man of God Elias and the new Adam; and spiritual son of Jechochannah mother of the world and virgin Eve and the new Eve.] Extraict de la doctrine et esprit de la nouvelle Eve Mere du monde. Au jugemenl du Senat perpetuel qui est de souveraine authorite et raison, et de touts ceulx qui luy obeissent et obeiront Iehochanne Caino HANIGMARO sive instaurato aut Renato authore. Hoc est a me stalim ab immutatione scriptum mense januario 1552 et inde assidue probatum.

70 On Postel's second journey to the Orient, see Kuntz, Guillaume Poslel, 92–100, and Secret. Us kabbalistes Chrétiens, 175.

71 Postel, ‘La nouvelle Eve Mere du Monde’, 39–40.

72 Ibid., 43.

73 Ibid., 41.

74 Ibid., 43–44.

75 See Bouwsma, Concordia Mundi, 159–160: ‘Postel's description of the experience itself made so much of the physical aspects of the transmutation largely because he chose to understand rebirth in an almost literal sense; he had been reborn to his spiritual mother, the anima mundi, and he was thus required to replace his old mortal shell with her spiritual substance’.

76 Secret, Les kabbalistes Chrétiens, 175; Kuntz, Guillaume Postel, 101.

77 Bibliographical facts in Claude Postel, Les écrits, Book 1, 17–21, 32, and 89–90; description of selected works published in France, Ibid., Book 2, 50–93; quotation translated from title page of L'histoire memorable des expeditions depuys le deluge /aides par les Gauloys ou Frācoys, Ibid., Book 2, 62. It will be noted that not all of what Guillaume Postel published in 1552 and 1553 was written after the Immutation.

78 Des merveilles dv monde, el principalemēt des admirables chojes des [Pais nouuellement defcouverts et cōuertiz ajefus Chrift. Par G. Poftel]. Et y eft monftré le lieu du Paradis terreftre. Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris Inv. Réserve D2 5267. [Author's autograph revision of the following, deleted, portion of the printed title: Indes, & du nouueau monde, Hijtoire extraicte des ejcriptz trejdign.es de Joy, tant de ceulx qui encores font a present audict pays, cōme de ceulx qui encores viuantz peu parauāt en font retournez.] Handwritten additions and corrections recur throughout the book. Their terminus post quern is 1566, the date of the ‘Miracle of Laon’, which is mentioned in an insertion on f. 41.

The main portion dealing with Japan (chs. vi-viii) is excerpted in Henri Bernard-Maitre SJ, ‘L'orientaliste Guillaume Postel et la découverte spirituelle du Japon en 1552’, MonumentaNipponica 9/l-2 (April 1953) 85–108.

79 Des merveilles dv monde, ff. 9 and 11v-12.

80 Ibid., ff. 16–18v and 19v-20. On the children of Abraham's concubines, see Genesis 25:6. Marco Polo's remarks on the Brahmins may be found in Henry Yule, translator and editor, The Book of Ser Marco Polo II (3rd rev. ed.; London 1929 reprint) 332 and 363–367; in this edition they are called Abraiaman.

81 Des merveilles dv monde, ff. 20–21v.

82 A few pages later (f. 23v), in discussing Yajirō's report about a Japanese analogy to infant. baptism, Postel takes it as certain proof that ‘Xaca cannot be anyone else than Jes[us], who Himself instituted baptism’, but adds in the margin that the story of the serpents was ‘taken from the fables of Hercules’. Xaca is another, Portuguese-based Romanization of the word Shaka.

83 Matthew 28:18.

84 Des merveilles dv monde, ff. 21v-26v.

85 Ibid., ff. 34v-35 and 31v. It would no doubt be idle to speculate how Postel would have reacted to the information that Japanese heraldry also had a device called kagome, that is, a hexagram, otherwise known as the Mogen David.

86 Xavier to the Jesuits of Europe, Cochin, 29 January 1552, Epistolae S. Frandsci Xaverii II, no. 96, 270–271.

87 ‘sumario dos erros en que os gentios do Japāo vivem e de algurhas seitas gentilicas en que principalmente confia’, attributed to Cosme de Torres SJ or Juan Fernandez SJ, transmitted by Torres to Melchor Núñez Barreto SJ, Provincial of India, in 1556, Documentos del Japon, 1547–1557, 652–667. Quotations from 657, 662, 664, and 659.

88 Des merveilles dv monde, ff. 13, 13v-14, 22v, and 27. On Postel's notion of the ecclesia generalis and its implications for cultures uninformed by scripture, including Japan, see Bouwsma, Concordia Mundi, 191–212.

89 Des merveilles dv monde, ff. 37–38v. On Postel's concept of the restitution of all things, see Bouwsma, Concordia Mundi, 116–119 and 276–281.

90 Des merveilles du monde, f. 39.

91 Ibid., ff. 80v-81.

92 According to Postel, Loyola also condemned him for believing in the ‘Judaic dreams’ regarding the worldly reign of the Messiah, whose task Postel referred to the Gallic monarch; for maintaining that the French king would not only reform the church but would also have a holy pope elected and confirmed in Gaul (Loyola suspected Postel – not without reason, though he denies it here - of identifying himself with this futurepope); and for refusing to agree that the pope is above the council. See Ibid., ff. 83v-85.

93 Ibid., ff. 10, 54v, 71, and 75v.

94 Ibid., ff. 49v-50. See Genesis 2:8.

95 Des merueilles dv monde, ff. 82rv and 80rv. Xavier himself was less than enthusiastic about the Moluccas, where he was active between February 1546 and May 1547. In one letter, he condemns the savagery that generally prevails there, going into lurid detail about the anthropophagy allegedly practised on some islands. In another, written six days later to King Joao III of Portugal, he complains about the loose habits even of the Portuguese who live there, alleges that far too many of them fail to live a Christian life and follow Jewish and Moorish standards, and tells the king that what the islands need is the Holy Inquisition. Xavier to the Jesuits of Europe, dated Ambueno, 10 May 1546 in: Hubert Jacobs SJ ed., Documenta Malucensia I (1542–1577), Missiones Orientales, Monumenta Missionum Societatis Iesu 32: Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu 109 (Rome 1974) no. 3, 12–13; Xavier to Dom Joāo III, dated Amboino, 16 May 1546, Ibid., no. 5, 20; also in EpistolaeS. Francisci XaveriiX, no. 55, 331 and no. 57, 346–347 respectively.

96 Des merueilles dv monde, ff. 46–48 and 51–53v. On Ophir and Tarshish, see 1 Kings 10:11 and 10:22. One theory situates Tarshish in the Guadalquivir River valley in southwest Spain – an unlikely destination for ships that fitted out at Solomon's port of Eziongeber, which was located not on the Mediterranean but at the north end of the Gulf of Aqabah; see 1 Kings 22:48 and 2 Chronicles 20:36.

97 Jacobs, Documenta Malucensia 1, 2*. All longitudes are eastern and are given according to the Oxford Atlas of the World, 2nd ed.

98 Timor is specified as the locale of the perambulating plants in Des merueilles dv monde, f. 66rv, on the authority of Antonio Pigafetta, who circumnavigated the globe on Magellan's expedition. Pigafetta, however, found the ‘trees […] making leaves which, when they fall, are alive and walk’ not on Timor but in a place close to the northernmost point of Borneo, Tanjong Sempang Mengayou (116° 40′); the nearby islands of Balambangan and Banggi are the most likely candidates. See Pigafetta, Antonio, Magellan's Voyage: A Narrative Account ofthe First Circumnavigation I (New Haven 1969) 105, translated and edited by Skelton, R.A.Google Scholar. Also see Skelton's glosses, 166, especially n. 9 identifying the leaves as ‘insects resembling leaves (Phyllium orthoptera)’. There is a ‘figure of the Island of Burne, and of the places where the living leaves are’ on 104.

Java is called the most splendid of the Moluccan Islands in De vniversitate liber, in qvo astronomiœ. doctrineúe cœlestis Compendium terrœ aptatum, & fecundum cœlestis influxus ordinem prœoelig;cipuarumque Originum rationem lotus orbis Terra; qualenus innotuil, cum Regnorum temporibus exponitur […] Guilielmo Pojtello Rejtituto in Regni Euangelici affertionem authore. ([Paris] E typographia Ioannis Gueullartij, ad Phoenicem, e regione collegij Remenjis, M.D.LI1) f. 53v.

99 Des merueilles du monde, ff. 54v-55v.

100 See Ibid., ff. 59v-60 and Hetoum, , A Lytell Cronycle: Richard Pynson's Translation (c1520) of ‘la Fleur des histoires de la terre d'Orient’ (c.1307) (Toronto 1988) 8–9Google Scholar, edited by Glenn Burger, Toronto Medieval Texts and Translations 6; Hayton, La Flor des estoires de la terre d'Orient in: Kohler, Ch., Meyer, Paul et al. eds, Recueil des historiens des croisades: Documents arméniens II, Documents latins et français relatifs à l'Arménie (Paris 1906) 122–123Google Scholar; and Haytonus, Flos historiarum terre orientis, Ibid., 262–263.

101 A Lytell Cronycle, 33, Hayton, La Flor, 157, and Haytonus, Flos historiarum, 292.

102 Des merueilles dv monde, f. 60; also see Ibid., f. 62rv, and A Lytell Cronycle, 26 and 29–31; Hayton, La Flor, 147 and 152–153; and Haytonus, Flos historiarum, 282 and 287–289.

103 Des merueilles dv monde, f. 93.

104 Ibid., ff. 93v-94v and 95v-96v.

105 Claude Postel, Les écrits, Book 2, 79–86. For Kant's comment, see Ibid., 84.

106 See Jean Dupèbe, ‘Poursuites contre Postel en 1553’ in: Jean-Claude Margolin, Guillaume Postel 1581–1981, 29–30 and 38–39. Postel's complaint is found in ‘Quelque fragment de quelque requeste envoyee a la reyne’ in: Postel, Apologies et retractions, 55.

107 Polanco, Chronicon Societatis Jesu IV (Madrid 1896) 235–237; see Ibid., n. 3, 236–237, for Canisius' report.

108 See Claude Postel, Les écrits. Book 1, 22–25, and compare Kuntz, Guillaume Postel, 118–128.

109 ‘Potria essere che hauessi inteso che l'inquisitione andaua drieto lui, benchè non già per nostra suggestione’; Loyola to Peter Canisius SJ, dated Rome, 26 June 1554, Epistolae et instructiones VII, Monumenta Historica Societatisjesu 34 (Rome 1966; photographic reprint of the original published by Gabriel Lopez del Homo in Madrid, 1903) no. 4572, 178.

110 Loyola to Giovanni Battista Tavono SJ, dated Rome, 8 September 1554, Ibid., no. 4771, 507–508.

111 ‘sententia contra Postellum’ in: Postel, Apologies el retractions, 211–212.

112 See Claude Postel, Les écrits. Book 1, 91; biographical details Ibid., 25–29.

113 Cosmographicae disciplinae compendium, in juumfinem, hoc. eft ad Diuince Prouidmtia certiffimam demonjtmtionem condudum, Gulielmo Postello authore (Basileae, per Ioannem Oporinum, 1561) 75.

114 Weill, Vie el caractère de Guillaume Postel, 309, n. 462 (by Secret). In this note Secret refers to his ‘Notes sur Guillaume Postel’, Bibliotheque d'humanisme et renaissance, 23/2 (1961) 361Google Scholar: ‘Postel situait an Pole le Paradis terrestre’. The original source is Polo aptata nova charta vniversi, a large polar planisphere which Postel published in 1578; see Marcel Destombes, ‘Guillaume Postel cartographe’, in: Jean-Claude Margolin, Guillaume Postel 1581–1981, 366–371 and plates xi-xiii. Destombes points out (p. 368) that the words ‘Paradis terrestre’ themselves do not appear on this map, but the polar area is labeled Terra sancta and Sueta Zemlia (Russian for ‘Holy Land’), its Hyperborean inhabitants are called sanctissim[i], a mountain named Stolp (Russian for ‘column’), that is, the columna mundi, rises from it, etcetera. So the indicators are unmistakable, even if it were not known from other sources that as early as 1561 Postel had entertained the notion of the pole as not only the geographic extremity of the earth but also the locus of the extremity of earthly bliss. See, for instance, Postel, Cosmographicae Disciplinae compendium, 24–25.