Kirishitan Yashiki 切支丹屋敷 - Myōgadani 茗荷谷

Turn down road between Book shop and Daily Yamazaki store

Take the road on the left

In the area of the adjoining residence of Shūmon Bugyō (Religious Inquisitor), Inoue
Masashige (1585-1661), a prison was built soon after the implementation of Sakoku
(national Isolation) for ten captured missionaries who had been transferred to Edo.
The people who were sent to this prison included the following:
Father Pedro Marques (1575-1657), Portuguese Jesuit, who came to Japan in 1643,
was immediately taken prisoner and imprisoned there for 13 years.

Father Francisco Casalla, an Italian Jesuit, who also came to Japan in 1643 and was
imprisoned. On the Japanese side, it is said that he married a Japanese woman and
lived for a number of years in the home of Inoue Masahige.

Brother Andrea Vieyra, who was Japanese by birth, came from Manila in 1643, was
imprisoned and took the name Nampō, and died there in 1678 and was buried in
Muryō-ji.

Father Giuseppe Chiara, was imprisoned there from 1646 to 1685.

Jikuan, was an Annamite Christian. He came to Japan in 1644 with the last mission
of the Jesuits, and was brought to the Yashiki where he died in 1700 at the age of
78. He was buried in the Muryō-in.

Giovanni Battista Sidotti (1668-1715) came to Japan from the Philippines in 1708
and was the last to be held there. He was known as the interlocutor of Arai Hakuseki,
and died there in 1715.

In 1792 the Religious Inquisition was abolished and at the same time the prison was
demolished. Near the place (today: 1-24-8 Kohinata, Bunkyō -ku) there are memorial
stones and an information board. The road to the jail is listed on city maps as
"Kirishitan-saka" (Christian Slope), but there is no sign of this anymore.

In July and August 2014, a survey was conducted along with the construction of an
apartment building on the residence there. The remains of three bodies were found
during the excavation. As a result of DNA analysis, one of them was identified as an
Italian male and is considered to be the remains of Giovanni Battista Sidotti.

In the Hibiya Museum and Public Library are the results from an excavation of the
area near to the Yaesu North exit of Tokyo Station in Chiyoda Ward which includes
the remains of a very early Christian Tomb from the Warring States period along with
a medallion which was found within the tomb. The medallion bears the inscription
“Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception”.
 Christian medallion

This was an important discovery in the Yaesu area that is associated with an agent
of the Dutch East India Company by the name of Jan Joosten van Lodensteyn, from
which the area’s name is derived (called "Yayosu Quay") and was an area famous
for ship building. He was the second mate of the Dutch ship Der Liefde whose pilot
was Will Adams. Along with Will Adams he was a hatamoto to the Shōgun
Tokugawa Ieyasu.

The ‘hekbeeld’ of Erasmus from the ship De Liefde

In 1920, a Japanese scholar, Dr. Naojiro Murakami, examined an unusual sculpture

that formed part of the treasures of the Ryuko-in in Sano City, Tochigi Prefecture. It
was known there as “Katekisama”, which has been variously explained as referring
to his priestly robes and the scroll in his right hand (perhaps a catechism?) and as a
corruption of the mythical Chinese inventor of shipbuilding. Murakami identified the
sculpture as the “figurehead” of De Liefde. He arranged to have it moved to the
Tokyo National Museum, where it has been on permanent loan ever since. A
photograph of the figure was displayed at a Catholic exhibition in Rome in 1926. On
seeing the photo Dutch scholars concluded that it was not a figurehead but a
“hekbeeld”, meaning a decorative image attached to the ship’s stern.
http://www.habri.co.uk/erasmus-de-liefde

(left to right) Jan Joosten Monument, Monument to De Liefde, Will Adams Monument