ABSTRACT
In the span of thirty years, between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, several Japanese missions came to Rome from Japan and paid a visit to the Pope. In 1877 an Italian historian, Guglielmo Berchet, published many documents preserved in Italian archives, concerning the Japanese missions. In his account, Amati refers to a speech which was delivered by Sotelo to the King of Spain on behalf of the so-called ‘Emperor of Japan,’ i.e. the Shogun. In the letter presented to the Sevilla Senate, on the first stop of the Embassy in Spain, Hasekura is mentioned as an Ambassador sent together with Sotelo. The spread of Catholicism, the request for more missionaries from the Franciscan order and the claim for more commercial transactions were all listed in the letter to the King of Spain. The Ambassador asked His Holiness to receive under his protection as a sovereign prince his king Masamune.
