LO SPECCHIO DI SÉ. 'AMBASCIATORI', GESUITI E SOVRANI IN SCENA NEL VIAGGIO ITALIANO DI QUATTRO PRINCIPI GIAPPONESI (1585)

This thesis investigated how the image of Japan was exploited and adapted to the needs of 16th century Europe during the Counter-Reformation. Through the mediation of the Society of Jesus, active in the Archipelago since 1549, Japan has taken on well-defined traits in the European imaginary. On the one hand, those of a culture with which dialogue took place with simplicity on the basis of a - supposed - religious similarity, and on the other, that of a still "wild" world that was to be tamed through the religious and cultural colonization carried out by the Fathers. This idea became predominant during the 1580s, when the Jesuits conducted an embassy of four young princes to the main Italian courts to make their narration immediately identifiable: the idea of Japan and its representation would have to match perfectly. The journey, which lasted from 1582 to 1587, with the return to Japan only in 1590 due to the changed political conditions of the Archipelago, was the first moment in which the image of the "other", until then confined to the imaginary, found its reification. In a ceremonial journey in which scriptwriters, actors and spectators each played their own role, the Peninsula found itself to be the stage covered by the young princes with their double role: symbol of missionary successes and at the same time medium through which the sovereigns challenged each other with a political exploitation of welcome. The delegation can also be used to analyse the Italian society at the end of the 16th century, with a privileged focus on the mass of spectators. The citizens, in fact, had to be gratified and educated through the theatrical representation of the "different" who had to be primarily conquered from a cultural point of view.