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Date Masamune's effigy at Zuiganji Temple, Matsushima. Photo by Richard Nibley, used with permission.
Date Masamune's effigy at Zuiganji Temple, Matsushima. Photo by Richard Nibley, used with permission.

This is the wealthy and powerful daimyo of Oshu (the modern day Tohoku region of Japan) who sent a cultural and trade expansion mission to Europe in 1613, featured in my upcoming non-fiction book.

Panorama of Rome from the Janiculum Hill
Panorama of Rome from the Janiculum Hill

This is a view across Rome from the Janiculum Hill, showing the Eternal City much as it would have appeared when the Keicho Mission was there in 1615.

Initial frontispiece from Amati's Historia del Regno di Voxu...
Initial frontispiece from Amati's Historia del Regno di Voxu...

This is an imaginative rendition of the presentation of treaties to Pope Paul V in October of 1615 by Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga and Fr. Luis Sotelo, joint ambassadors of Date Masamune. Note the small figure holding Hasekura's garment, dressed exactly like him, and staring directly at the viewer. Is it possible that this is Scipione Amati, author of the book? Was he a court dwarf in the service of the Colonna family?

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