Mayu Fujikawa, "Envisioning Diplomacy: Japanese Ambassadors in Early Modern Europe" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2025)

Dec 19, 2025

Dr. Mayu Fujikawa, an art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance art, delves into the fascinating diplomatic history of Japan's early embassies in Europe. She explores how European artists depicted these ambassadors, examining the cultural significance of their attire and gifts as tools of soft diplomacy. Fujikawa highlights the unique roles of visual materials in shaping public perception and details the unique challenges faced in representing Japanese culture abroad. She also shares insights into her future project on the culinary exchanges of the Tenshō embassy.

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INSIGHT

Images As Diplomatic Tools

Europeans commissioned many images of the Japanese embassies because the portrayals served diplomatic and cultural purposes.
Mayu Fujikawa argues images functioned as soft power, memory, and political messaging beyond mere curiosity.

ANECDOTE

Papal Elevation Of Seminarians

Pope Gregory XIII reclassified four Japanese seminarians as 'ambassadors of obedience' and staged official ceremonies for them.
The Pope used medals, drawings, and ceremonies to present their kneeling obedience as proof of Catholic outreach.

INSIGHT

Controlled Visual Assimilation

Jesuits managed the students' appearance to balance assimilation and exotic visibility in Europe.
Hosts like the Pope wanted them to stand out, so portraits sometimes showed kimonos rather than Jesuit dress.

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In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Japan sent its first diplomatic delegations to visit the popes and dignitaries of Europe. European artists portrayed these historic ambassadors—the Tenshō embassy (1582–90) and the Keichō embassy (1613–20)—in numerous oil paintings, frescoes, drawings, and prints. Envisioning Diplomacy: Japanese Ambassadors in Early Modern Europe (Pennsylvania State UP, 2025) by Dr. Mayu Fujikawa analyzes these images—including newly discovered and lost works—within their cross-cultural and diplomatic contexts.

Drawing on extensive and geographically expansive archival research, art historian Dr. Fujikawa investigates how the embassies were received and either assimilated or differentiated at European courts. She demonstrates how delegates’ gifts to their hosts, their Europeanized kimonos, and the Western clothes they wore while traveling functioned as tools of soft diplomacy. Dr. Fujikawa also shows how printed materials functioned much as news does today, promoting the embassies widely and conveying information about the guests and their striking physical appearance.

Envisioning Diplomacy offers a fascinating look at the political, social, and cultural meanings of visual materials created around the embassies and should be of great interest to scholars, students, and general readers interested in early modern European art and history, costume history, diplomatic history, and Japanese and global studies.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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