Expositions temporaires thématiques

Special Exhibition
Beyond Malacca and into East Asia: 16th Century Portuguese Cartography
Term：Nov. 25, 2023 - Feb. 12, 2024

We have English explanation part in this exhibition. 

Malacca is located in the south of the Malay Peninsula, and was a strategic point for east-west traffic. Having discovered the India Route, Portugal occupied the Malacca Sultanate in 1511, and established it as a base for forwarding ships to the Far East – places that were as yet unknown to the Western world. In Malacca, the Portuguese encountered Lequios, who brought many different valuable commodities to the port. Lequios is the term the Portuguese used to refer to people from Okinawa, at that time known as Ryukyu, who were working the intermediate trade routes in the China Seas from the Korean Peninsula to Malacca. From this encounter onwards, Portuguese voyages to Ryukyu and Japan continued, and they made revisions to the maps of the Far East based on their experiences.
　The Portuguese kept their updated maps secret, almost of which were lost by the Lisbon Earthquake in 1755, but duplicate maps and atlases that had been copied at the request of other royal families have been handed down to us today as unique handmade materials. The details of these maps, which are rarely seen, have been made visible as high resolution replicas through recent advances in digital technology. Through Kokugakuin University Library’s collection of replicas of maps made by Portugal or other European countries, this exhibition will trace the Portuguese image of the Far East, and especially the cognition of Ryukyu and Japan.

*Flyer