Search

Only five years after the Royal Superior School of Commerce (the present Ca’ Foscari University) was founded in 1868, the School introduced, for the first time in Italy, Japanese language courses taught by native speakers. The classes started in 1873 and continued until 1888, and were again part of the curriculum from 1909 to 1923. In those years a little number of very active Japanese teachers (interprets, linguists, sculptors and painters) contributed to shaping the education in Japanese of Italian students, who in turn went on to direct Japanese instruction in Italy. Their guiding spirit was Guglielmo Berchet, a tireless promoter of Italo-Japanese relations.

This paper traces the history of Japanese Studies in Ca’ Foscari University from the foundation of the Course in Oriental Studies in 1965. Furthermore, the paper outlines the state of the research in Japanese Studies describing profiles, the scientific production, methods and lines of research of the professors, researchers and scholars in Ca’ Foscari University. The range of Japanese studies is based on a long standing tradition and includes Japanese Language, Literature, Philology and Linguistic, History and Institutions, Economics, Society, Politic and International Relations, Religion, Philosophy and Cultural Anthropology, Figurative and Performing Arts, Fine Arts, Theatre, Film and Visual Culture, etc.

T Nhe private correspondence of Toyotomi Hideyoshi,1 although possessing considerable interest for a better understanding of both his way of thinking and his political actions, has yet to be translated into a Western language.2 This short note aims at merely presenting the corpus of the letters available today, providing some details of their main features and relating their subjects and recipients. Only a few sentences are quoted here in order to throw light on the ruler's personal feelings, for I will be shortly publishing a full translation of all the letters. Hideyoshi employed scribes for his official correspondence,3 but he himself wrote in kana many letters addressed to his mother, wife, concubines, sons and other people. He wrote these letters in kana not because of his low birth (although his lack of formal education is certainly reflected by his frequent use of ateji4), but because the syllabic script was considered most appropriate in letters addressed to women and children. Thus the graphic and structural elements of his letters are the kana (either hiragana or katakana5), hentaigana,6 nyjbj kotoba,7 moji kotoba8