Itō Mancio

He was born in Hyūga Province, Tonokōri (now Saito, Miyazaki) to a noble family in 1569.{{cite web|url=http://www.japancastle.jp/2015/08/Tonokori-castle.html|title=Tonokori Castle|website=japancastle.jp|access-date=July 20, 2016|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Congress|first=The Library of|title=Itō, Mansho, 1569 or 1570-1612 - LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies {{!}} Library of Congress, from LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies (Library of Congress)|url=https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2013093605.html|access-date=2021-09-18|website=id.loc.gov}} His official birthname was Itō Sukemasu (伊東 祐益).{{cn|date=May 2022}} His father was Itō Sukeharu (伊東祐青) and his mother was Machinoue (町の上) the daughter of daimyo Itō Yoshisuke.{{cn|date=May 2022}} He was a member of the Itō clan.{{cn|date=May 2022}}

File:First_Japanese_Embassy_to_Europe_1586.png

File:Japanese_Tensho_Embassy_with_Pope_Gregory_XIII_1585.png

Itō Mancio studied theology and Latin at the seminary in Nagasaki. As leader of the Tenshō embassy (1582–90) he traveled to Europe where he met Popes Gregory XIII and Sixtus V in Rome.{{Cite book|last=Meietto|first=Paolo|url=http://archive.org/details/relationedelviag00meie|title=Relatione del viaggio et arrivo in Evropa et Roma de' principi giapponesi: venutià dare obedienza à Sua Santità l'anno MDLXXXV all'Eccell. Sig. Girolamo Mercvriale|year=1585|publisher=In Venetia : Appresso Paolo Meietto|others=Getty Research Institute}}

The idea of sending a Japanese embassy to Europe was originally conceived by the Jesuit Alessandro Valignano.{{harvnb|Massarella|2013|p=1}}. and sponsored by the Christian daimyō Ōtomo Sōrin, Ōmura Sumitada and Arima Harunobu. Itō Sukemasu was placed at the head of the group by Ōtomo, daimyō of the Bungo Province of Kyūshū{{harvnb|Iannello|2013|p=30}} e {{harvnb|Benzoni|2012|p=133}}. and close relative of Sukemasu's father, Itō Shurinosuke.{{harvnb|Schütte|p=252}}.

In 1580 Itō was baptized with the name Mancio (Mansho, マンショ).{{harvnb|Nussbaum|2002|p=405}}. On February 20, 1582 Itō left Nagasaki in the company of three other nobles: Michele Chijiwa, Giuliano Nakaura and Martino Hara.{{harvnb|Massarella|2013|p=2}}. They were accompanied by two servants and their tutor and interpreter Diego de Mesquita,{{cite web|url=http://www.santamariadellorto.it/nakaura.asp|title=Il beato Nakaura|website=Santamariadellorto.it|access-date=December 22, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227035349/http://www.santamariadellorto.it/nakaura.asp|archive-date=December 27, 2014|url-status=dead}} as well as by Valignano himself, who escorted them to Goa in India before taking on a new post.{{harvnb|Massarella|2013|p=2}} e {{harvnb|Gunji|p=23}}. On the way to Lisbon they spent nine months between Macau, Kochi and Goa.{{cite web|url=http://www.aapj.pt/subcanais_n1.asp?id_subcanal_n1=197&id_canal=127|title=Relações entre Portugal e o Japão/Missão "Tenshō" para a Europa (1582-86)|publisher=Associação da Amizade Portugal Japão|language=pt|access-date=December 29, 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100804215407/http://www.aapj.pt/subcanais_n1.asp?id_subcanal_n1=197&id_canal=127|archive-date=August 4, 2010}}{{harvnb|Musillo|2012|p=2}}. From Lisbon they left for Rome,{{harvnb|Gunji|pp=29–30}}. the main destination of the trip. In Rome Mancio was nominated honorary citizen and adorned with the title of Order of the Golden Spur.{{harvnb|Murdoch|2004|p=115}}. During the return journey from Rome they headed for Venice and along the way they stopped for a day in Imola (June 18, 1585). A manuscript was drawn up in their honor and as evidence of the event, which is still preserved in the municipal historical archive of the city.{{cite web | url=https://www.leggilanotizia.it/2011/07/26/giapponesi-a-imola-per-vedere-un-prezioso-manoscritto-del-500/ | title=Giapponesi a Imola per vedere un prezioso manoscritto del '500 | date=26 July 2011 }}

The ambassadors returned to Japan on 21 July 1590. During their stay in Europe the group met King Philip II of Spain,{{harvnb|Musillo|2012|pp=2–3}}. the Grand Duke of Tuscany Francesco I de 'Medici,{{harvnb|Gunji|p=24}}. Pope Gregory XIII and his successor, Sixtus V.{{harvnb|Musillo|2012|p=3}} e {{harvnb|Gunji|p=30}}.

Joining the order of Jesuit priests in 1608{{harvnb|Nussbaum|2002|p=406}}. he engaged in missionary work in northwest Japan but soon was expelled from the local Kokura domain and then moved to the Nakatsu Domain. He was finally exiled to Nagasaki and became a teacher at the seminary. Mancio died of an illness in Nagasaki in 1612, at the age of 43.{{harvnb|The Asahi Shimbun|1982|p=456}}.

A portrait depicting Itō Mancio was discovered in 2008 and entrusted to the care of experts who identified its authenticity and attributed its creation to Domenico Tintoretto. The painting, an oil on canvas 53 centimeters high by 43 centimeters wide, depicted a young man with oriental features dressed in the Spanish fashion of the late sixteenth century, with a brown suit, black hat and white ruff. On the back of the work there was the inscription «D. MANSIO NIPOTE DEL RE DI FIGENGA AMB[asciator]E DEL RE FRA[nces]CO BVGNOCINGVA A SUA SAN[tit]A. MCXXCV. DGH 393».{{cite web|url=http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/cultura/2016-06-17/il-prencipe-giapponese-165729.shtml?uuid=ADPavEb|title=Il "Prencipe" giapponese|publisher=Il Sole 24 Ore|author=Marco Carminati|date=June 19, 2016|access-date=July 22, 2016}}

The painting was commissioned by the Senate of Venice to Jacopo Tintoretto in 1585 on the occasion of the passage of the ambassadors in the city. In reality, the portrait was made by his son Domenico, remaining in stock in the Tintorette workshop until the Spanish collector Gaspar Méndez de Haro, Marquis del Carpio, bought the entire collection of the two artists. Due to his debts, however, he was forced to sell all his assets and the work ended up in the hands of the Florentine banker Giovanni Francesco del Rosso who in turn ceded it to the Rinuccini family of Florence. In 1831 Marianna Rinuccini married Giorgio Teodoro Trivulzio, bringing as a dowry the portrait of Itō Mancio into the Trivulzio collection in Milan.

The painting was restored in 2009 and exhibited in Tokyo, Nagasaki and Miyazaki (Mancio's place of origin) on the occasion of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of diplomatic relations between Italy and Japan in 2016.{{cite web|url=http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/mondo/2016-05-18/tintoretto-tokyo-anteprima-ritratto-ito-mancio-primo-giapponese-italia-072140.shtml?uuid=ADIR7NK&refresh_ce=1|title=Tintoretto a Tokyo: anteprima del ritratto di Ito Mancio, primo giapponese in Italia|publisher=Il Sole 24 Ore|author=Stefano Carrer|date=May 18, 2016|access-date=July 22, 2016}}

• Hasekura Tsunenaga
• Christianity in Japan

{{reflist}}

• C. R. Boxer: The Christian Century in Japan 1549-1650. Carcanet Press, {{ISBN|1-85754-035-2}}

Primary sources

• {{cite book |title=Relationi della venuta degli ambasciatori Giaponesi a Roma sino alla partita di Lisbona|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5T5SAAAAcAAJ|editor=Guido Gualtieri|publisher=Zannetti|year=1586}}
• {{cite book |title=Relatione del viaggio et arrivo in Evropa et Roma de' principi giapponesi: venuti à dare obedienza à Sua Santità l'anno MDLXXXV all'Eccell. Sig. Girolamo Mercvriale|url=https://archive.org/details/relationedelviag00meie|author=Paolo Meietto|author-link=Paolo Meietto|location=Venezia|year=1585}}
• {{cite book |title=De missione legatorum Iaponensium ad Romanam Curiam|author=Duarte de Sande|author-link=Duarte de Sande|language=la|year=1590}}

Secondary sources

• {{cite web|access-date=August 21, 2022|title=Japan Quarterly|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_japan-quarterly_1963_10_index|publisher=The Asahi Shimbun|orig-date=1963 |ref={{harvid|The Asahi Shimbun|1982}}}}
• {{cite book |title=Americhe e modernità. Un itinerario fra storia e storiografia dal 1492 ad oggi|first=Maria Matilde |last=Benzoni|publisher=Franco Angeli Edizioni|year=2012|isbn=978-88-204-0408-6}}
• {{cite web|access-date=December 28, 2014|first=Yasunori |last=Gunji |title=La missione degli Ambasciatori Giapponesi del 1985 a Bagnaia |website=Biblioteca Consorziale Viterbo |url=http://www.bibliotecaviterbo.it/biblioteca-e-societa/1980_3/Gunji.pdf}}
• {{cite magazine|access-date=December 29, 2014|date=2013|first=Tiziana |last=Iannello |pages=22–50|magazine=Il Giappone|title=Una legazione giapponese alla corte di Alfonso II d'Este (22-25 giugno 1585): documenti e testimonianze|url=https://www.academia.edu/5055864|volume=LI}}
• {{cite magazine |access-date=July 20, 2016 |first=Dereck |last=Massarella |date=February 2013 |archive-date=August 26, 2014 |issn=0072-9396 |language=en |magazine=The Journal of the Hakluyt Society |title=The Japanese Embassy to Europe |url=http://www.hakluyt.com/PDF/Massarella.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826011308/http://www.hakluyt.com/PDF/Massarella.pdf}} Estratto dal libro di {{cite book |title=Japanese Travellers in Sixteenth-Century Europe: A Dialogue Concerning the Mission of the Japanese Ambassadors to the Roman Curia (1590)|author=Duarte de Sande|author-link=Duarte de Sande |publisher=Ashgate Publishing|year=2013|editor=Dereck Massarella|isbn=978-1-4094-7223-0 |ref=none}}
• {{cite book |title=La Chiesa tra Rinascimento e illuminismo|author=Luigi Mezzadri|publisher=Città Nuova|year=2006|isbn=88-311-0340-7|ref=Mezzadri e Vismara, 2006}}
• {{cite book |title=A History of Japan|first=James |last=Murdoch|publisher=Psychology Press|volume=2|language=en|year=2004|isbn=978-0-415-15416-1}}
• {{cite book |first=Marco |last=Musillo |language=en |chapter=Travelers from Afar through Civic Spaces: The Tenshō Embassy in Renaissance Italy |url=https://www.academia.edu/7019835 |title=Western Visions of the Far East in a Transpacific Age, 1522–1657|publisher=Ashgate Publishing |year=2012|editor=Christina H. Lee|isbn=978-1-4094-0850-5}}
• {{cite book |title=Japan Encyclopedia|first=Louis-Frédéric |last=Nussbaum|publisher=Harvard University Press|pages=405–406|language=en|year=2002|isbn=978-0-674-01753-5}}
• {{cite book |title=Valignano's mission principles for Japan|first=Josef Franz |last=Schütte |publisher=Institute of Jesuit Sources |edition=5th |language=en}}
• {{cite conference |first=Daniele |last=Sestili|title=La prima introduzione della musica europea in Giappone tra Cinque e Seicento|location=Firenze|editor1=A. Boscaro |editor2=e M. Bossi|date=2001|doi=10.1400/186692|publisher=Olschki|isbn=88-222-4998-4|pages=57–65|book-title=Firenze, il Giappone e l'Asia orientale. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi (Firenze, 25-27 marzo 1999) Copertina flessibile – 1 aprile 2001}}

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Category:1569 births

Category:1612 deaths

Category:Japanese Roman Catholics

Category:Japanese Roman Catholic missionaries

Category:Roman Catholic missionaries in Japan

Category:Members of the Tenshō embassy