Dettaglio Scheda - "Io. Petri Maffeij ... Historiarum Indicarum libri 16. ..."

2 pt. (\28!, 281 \i.e. 283!, \1!; 211, \1! c. ; 4º

La pt. 2. inizia con proprio frontespizio

Pt. 2: Selectarum epistolarum ex India lbri quatuor. Venetiis : ex officina Damiani Zenarij, 1588

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Cors. ; rom

Segn.: a-g⁴ A-2M⁸ 2N⁴; a-2c⁸ 2d⁴

Iniziali e fregi xil.

“Maffei’s “Historiarum Indicarum” received an enthusiastic reception all over Europe. The way had been prepared for its appearance by the enthusiasm aroused by the Japanese embassy. Like Mendoza’s book on China, it hit the market when curiosity about the Far East was at its height […] Unlike many of the letters from the East, Maffei’s work is couched in careful language and rhetorical flourishes are notably few. Even Valignano, who had warned that Maffei’s work should not be published until it had been seen in the East, appeared to be happy with his discussion of Japan. In 1603, the Jesuit Visitor [Valignano] wrote from Macao: “Of all those who have so far written about Japan, none has done it with greater precision or in better order than father G.P. Maffei.”

 “Most of Maffei’s work is concerned with the Portuguese conquests and the Jesuit stations in India, the East Indies, and the region of the Arabian Sea to about 1557. The first five books appear to follow rather closely the model of Barros. Book VI, dealing with China like Book XII, which is mainly concerned with Japan, is heavily indebted to Valignano’s account of those countries. The appendixes of letters…were almost all written either about or from Japan in the years between 1549 and 1574. While reproducing here many of the same letters which he had earlier appended to his translation of Da Costa’s book “Rerum a Societate Jesu in Oriente gestarum”, Maffei appears to have exercised greater care in the selections which he made for this second compendium. Furthermore, this second effort did not suffer from the excisions and revisions of the Roman censors. In fact, it is worth observing that it originally appeared in Florence, and that none of the subsequent editions was produced at Rome.”

Cfr.: Donald Lach Asia in the Making of Europe  Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1971, v. I, pp. 325-326.

L’Historia di Maffei fu per molto tempo uno degli strumenti d’elezione dei missionari gesuiti impegnati nell’evangelizzazione del Giappone, dell’India e della Cina.
 

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