Innovations in Book Production in the Early Jesuit Mission in Japan
- Format:
- Conference Paper
- Year:
- 2019
- Event Date:
- October 5
- Panel Title:
- Christianity in Japan
- Event Institution:
- Kirishitan Bunko, Sophia University; Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco
- Conference Title:
- Historical Legacies of Christianity in East Asia
- Conference Location:
- Tokyo
- Abstract:
The early Jesuit mission in Japan (1549 – 1614) introduced several technical innovations in book production. Among them were:
1. Metal movable-type printing
2. Double-printing and music
3. Imposition in manuscripts -- These are not separate innovations but are closely related.
4. Metal movable-type printing -- Printing books was an absolute necessity in the mission, as was held by Valignano, who sent out the Tenshô embassy to Rome in order to let them acquire the skills of typesetting, page composition, and book production in Lisbon. Metal movable types were therefore the natural option to them, even for Japanese characters, the equipment for which (of course) did not exist at that time. The embassy solved this bootstrap issue simply by ordering a (first) Japanese metal movable-type set (consisting of only 200 characters) in Europe. They even made a test print on Japanese (TORINOKO) paper in Lisbon (1586) before returning to Japan. The embassy ordered and imported a printing press, a Roman alphabet set, and a Japanese (KANA and KANJI) set, but failed to import an italic alphabet set. The Japanese mission was forced to create an Italic set in Japan, before 1594, for the preparation of a tri-lingual De institutione grammatica libri tres (1594) and Dictionarium Latino Lusitanicum, ac Japonicum (1595). But this Italic set was a failure, and was not used in the Dictionarium (1595) as had been expected. The recreation of the Italic set was completed after the creation of a new KANA-KANJI set (of more than 2,500 characters) in 1598. The Roman set followed.
5. Double-printing and music -- The early Jesuit mission press sometimes printed the title page, the subsequent licenses, and the prefaces in several separate printings. This was achieved by putting an (already) printed paper under the printing press once again: i.e., a double-print. Printing prefaces more than once is awkward: this suggests that book production by the Jesuits in Japan was unstable. An apparent case of double-printing is music printed in red and black (1605), but this is actually triple-printing, a technique quite common in 16th century Venice which may have been acquired there by the Tenshô Embassy during their visit.
6. Imposition in manuscripts -- Imposition was a common technique in page compositions in printed books, but it had been in use in manuscripts before the advent of printing. All of the Jesuit mission printed books, written in the Latin script, used imposition. The Jesuit mission went on to employ imposition in manuscripts in Latin script. Several bibliographical studies of imposed manuscripts in Europe suggest that the reason for imposing manuscripts may have been the management of manuscript archives: because imposed manuscripts are just a bundle of sheets (and not folded), they were easier to handle than a folded bunch. This also suggests that the book production of the Jesuit mission in Japan was quite unstable,
- What (Subjects):
- Where (Locations):
- When (Centuries):
- Conference URL: