Encounters? The De missione dialogus, its Cosmographic Discourses, and the Global Projection of Christian Europe’s Alleged Superiority

Cahiers d’études des cultures ibériques et latino-américaines

Angelo Cattaneo¹ 

[1] Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche;

关键词: valignano;    jesuit missions;    japan;    tenshō embassy;    ortelius;    world cartography;    theatrum orbis terrarum;    japanese nanban folding screens;    political-cultural interactions;   

DOI  :  https://doi.org/10.21409/c8_8

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This essay analyses the epistemological foundations of the use and functions of cosmography, geography and cartography in the De missione dialogus as a way to sustain the European moral and scientific alleged superiority with respect to all other civilizations. Since the padre visitador Alessandro Valignano S. J. (1539-1606) outlined the geographical discourse of the De missione by following Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570), this study will also allow to analyze a specific use of the Theatrum for Catholic missionary purposes. On the basis of extant research on the reception of Western iconography in Japan, we will discuss the possible role of De missione in the appearance and production, since the late sixteenth century, of a hybrid pictorial corpus of cosmographic images depicted by Japanese painters on folding screens (the so-called sekai chizu byōbu, or ‘world map’ folding screens), in particular of those of the Jōtoku-ji type, displaying the sea routes of circumnavigation of the whole globe.

【 授权许可】

Unknown