表題番号：2025C-002
日付：2026/03/02
研究課題バチカン図書館所蔵ディエゴ・デ・サン・フランシスコの日本語書簡に関する研究
| 研究者所属（当時） | 資格 | 氏名 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| （代表者） | 政治経済学術院 政治経済学部 | 准教授 | マルティ・オロバル ベルナット |
- 研究成果概要
- I have devoted this project to the study of a letter written in Japanese and addressed to the Christian communities of several villages near the city of Sendai. The letter is signed by Diego de San Francisco and seeks to respond to Jesuit criticisms of the Franciscan practice of administering the sacrament of confirmation. The letter is dated “16 April,” but the exact year is not specified; following our investigation, we have concluded that it was almost certainly written in 1627.
One of the most interesting aspects of this letter by Diego de San Francisco is its closing section, which concludes with a list of the Christian communities to which the letter was addressed. This information is particularly valuable, as it records the names of several settlements in this region of Japan in which Christian communities existed.
After the beginning of the Meiji period (1868) and the renewed entry of Christian missionaries into Japan, the letter was handed over in 1885 to the French missionary Lucien Drouart de Lézey (1849–1930), who subsequently sent it to Tokyo, specifically to the Bishop of Japan, Pierre Marie Osouf (1829–1906). There, it was translated into French by the missionary François-Alfred-Désiré Ligneul (1847–1922), with the translation dated 29 March 1886. The original letter and its translation were deposited later that same year in the Archive of Propaganda Fide in Rome, on 19 April 1886. They were subsequently transferred to the Vatican Library, where they are currently catalogued under the reference number “Borg. cin. 520.”
As can be seen from the reference number, the letter originally formed part of the Borgian Chinese Collection (Fondo Borgiano Cinese), included within the library donated by Cardinal Stefano Borgia (1731–1804) to the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in 1804. Borgia, who served as Secretary of Propaganda Fide from 1770 onward and was an avid collector throughout his life, donated part of his collection of coins, books, and manuscripts to Propaganda Fide, forming the basis of the Museo Borgiano.
At present, under the shelfmark “Borg. cin. 520,” the Vatican Library preserves not only the aforementioned letter by Diego de San Francisco and its French translation, but also two additional documents that, after careful analysis, we believe were erroneously grouped together with the letter. Specifically, this entire set of documents is preserved within hard covers and arranged in the following order: a sheet smaller than the others, with an inscription in English on one side; the Japanese letter by Diego de San Francisco, whose final page bears an attached label identifying it as “Cinese 520 (1)”; the French translation, whose first page bears an attached label identifying it as “Cinese 520 (2)”; and, finally, another loose sheet, folded in half, with an inscription in Japanese. It is likely that the two documents that now open and close the “Borg. cin. 520” set were added at a later stage, since only the Japanese letter and its translation bear labels identifying them as “Borg. cin. 520.”
I have not only analyzed this letter but also translated it, and we are currently completing a monograph related to this letter and to the conflict of which it and other documents form part. Part of this project’s budget has been allocated to publication funding for this monograph, which is expected to appear in 2026.