Japan History of Exploration Part I

The first information received in Europe on Japan consists of the well-known, fantastic description that Marco Polo makes of Cipangu, and the influence it had at the end of the Middle Ages is known, both on the geographical concepts of the time (Colombo, Toscanelli), and on the most ancient cartographic representations of the Far East, among which the map of the Camaldolese Fra Mauro (1459) is first in order of time, followed in 1492 by that of Behaim.

The cases that occurred to the Portuguese adventurer Fernando Mendez Pinto, who landed, apparently in 1543, on the island of Tanegashima with two companions, Diego Zeimoto and Christobal Baralho, are perhaps to be considered the first direct contact between Europeans and Japanese, despite the criticisms and discussions arose around the description that Pinto left us in his Perigrana å ampublished in Lisbon in 1614.

Our knowledge of the archipelago begins, however, with the landing in Kagoshima, on the island of Kyūshū, of the Jesuit Francis Xavier and his companions, on August 15, 1549. It is in the letters and reports of these missionaries that Europe receives the first news concerning Japan, consisting mostly of names of cities and provinces, indications of distances, descriptions of uses, customs and character of the natives, and as such, therefore, lacking in notable scientific value; nor can it be said otherwise of all later Jesuit literature concerning Japan; if there are not even works of a whole (O. Torsellini, Soliers, Crasset, Charlevoix, etc.), their content concerns, in general, only political geography.

On the other hand, the surveys and observations appear to be important, at least for the reflections they had on the cartography, albeit imprecise and limited to the stretches of coast or to the places frequented by their ships, which were carried out first by Portuguese traders, then by Spaniards, who set out immediately after the Xavier to the ports of southern Japan, with the intention of starting exchanges and establishing commercial relations. Indeed, the first important contribution to the knowledge of the archipelago belongs to the Spaniards: the measurement, that is, the partial survey of the Japanese coasts, carried out in 1611 by Sebastiano Vizcaino. The exact results of his journey are not known to us, since, if the report, still handwritten, has been received, the derrotero was lost instead ., or book of routes, and the sketches made on board; it appears, however, that he carried out surveys and surveys from Miyako, on the northeast coast of Hondo, in Nagasaki.

In 1609, the commercial monopoly passed to the Dutch. Up to this epoch, what and how much progress in the knowledge of the archipelago had been achieved through the work of Portuguese and Spanish traders and missionaries can easily be revealed by examining the Iberian maps, atlases and descriptions mainly headed by D. Homem (1558, 1561, 1568), F. Vaz Dourado (1568), A. de Herrera (1601). Basically they are limited to southern Japan, and more precisely to the Yamaguchi region, the southern western and northern coasts of Kyushu, Shikoku and short stretches of the Inner Sea. Of the other parts of the country there is only news or vague hints, scattered here and there in the aforementioned letters and reports, almost always reported and only rarely the result of direct observations.

According to RRRJEWELRY.COM, the contributions made by the Dutch to the knowledge of the archipelago were, from the very beginning of their monopoly, truly conspicuous. Suffice it to say that around the middle of the century. XVIII, the only complete description of Japan is that, of considerable importance, by F. Caron, which, in addition to many geographical data, also contains a questionnaire, with answers, on the country’s ethnography; and that the scientific geography of the archipelago, at the same time, already boasts the names of JH Linschooten, B. Varen, and J. Blaeu.

In 1624, meanwhile, Japan was closed for political reasons by the shōgun, but the Dutch retained the privilege accorded them and the Deshima farm, an artificial islet built in the port of Nagasaki, was to constitute for almost two and a half centuries (until 1868) the only means of mutual information between Europe and Japan. The isolation of this, as is natural, marks a sudden stop in our knowledge, both for the difficulty of carrying out surveys on its coasts, and for the impossibility of making travels and explorations in its interior. However, it is precisely in this period that the most scientifically important and interesting news about the country and its residents reach Europe, thanks to the shrewd efforts and diligence of Engelbrecht Kaempfer (1651-1716), by K. Peter Thunberg (1743-1828) and Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), all serving as surgeons in Deshima. Using a lot of tact, but above all with the professional ability that earned them a wide reputation among the natives, they managed to overcome their habitual reserve and jealousy, and were thus able to make numerous observations and collect materials concerning history, institutions, customs., the customs, geography, natural sciences, etc., of the Japan of their time, and the works they left behind constitute the best, given the circumstances, Europe could obtain. Siebold’s contributions are particularly valuable. professional skill that earned them a wide reputation among the indigenous, they managed to overcome their habitual reserve and jealousy, and were thus able to make numerous observations and collect materials concerning history, institutions, customs, customs, geography, sciences nature, etc., of the Japan of their time, and the works they left behind constitute the best, given the circumstances, Europe could obtain. Siebold’s contributions are particularly valuable. professional skill that earned them a wide reputation among the indigenous, they managed to overcome their habitual reserve and jealousy, and were thus able to make numerous observations and collect materials concerning history, institutions, customs, customs, geography, sciences nature, etc., of the Japan of their time, and the works they left behind constitute the best, given the circumstances, Europe could obtain. Siebold’s contributions are particularly valuable. they let constitute the best, given the circumstances, Europe could obtain. Siebold’s contributions are particularly valuable. they let constitute the best, given the circumstances, Europe could obtain. Siebold’s contributions are particularly valuable.

The picture of external exploration during the country’s isolation period is rich in events and dates. In the 17th century, the legend of the existence of islands rich in gold and silver (Goud – en zilverryke Eylanden), located in the Pacific Ocean at about 37 ° 50 ′ lat. north, pushes the Deshima, to set up two expeditions. If the goal was not achieved, because the islands were not found, geographically remarkable results were nevertheless achieved; in particular, the first expedition commanded by MH Quast discovered (1639) the Bonin group and that of the Izu (Izu Shichi – t ō); the second, under the orders of MG Vries, constitutes the first reconnaissance of northern Japan. The Vries visited the north-east coasts of Hondo, the north-east and south-east coasts of Yezo and the bay of Aniwa, which the thick mists covering the Sōya Strait made him believe to belong to Yezo. The fact that he did not explore the southernmost part of this island kept for more than a century the mistake that it was separated from Hondo by an arm of the sea 3 degrees wide. The Vries voyage is still one of the most important made in the seas of Japan, both for the itinerary followed and for the accuracy with which the positions and accuracy of execution of the coastal profiles were determined.

Japan History of Exploration 1