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Scarce French missionary travel map tracing an overland journey from Hakodate, in the far north of Japan’s Hokkaido (here “Ile de Yeso”), to Yedo (modern Tokyo). This “carte itinéraire” captures the firsthand experience of Father Marin, a Catholic missionary associated with the Paris Foreign Missions Society, reflecting the expansion of European religious and geographic knowledge in the early Meiji period.
The route passes through prominent domains and provinces of northern and central Honshū, including the provinces of Mutsu, Dewa, and Uzen, all shown with a mixture of French transliterations and romanized Japanese toponyms. The map includes detailed annotation of waystations, towns, natural features (such as Lac d'Inabachiro), and port cities including Niégata and Yokohama, with Yedo (Tokyo) shown as the political center.
The northernmost region—“Ile de Yeso” (Hokkaidō)—is still labeled in the older European convention, with Hakodate, the primary center of Western presence, prominently marked. The Strait of Tsugaru (“Détroit de Tsougarou”) separates Yeso from Honshū.
Cartographically, this map is important for showing missionary geography in Japan in the immediate post-opening period, just after the Convention of Kanagawa (1854) and prior to full Meiji modernization. It is based on the actual travels of a French missionary—remarkably rare documentation at a time when interior access to Japan was heavily restricted and foreign travel was confined to treaty ports and designated routes.
Beautifully engraved and printed in Paris, the map was likely produced to accompany or illustrate missionary reports published by the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris. It captures both geographic curiosity and religious ambition as European missions followed newly opened Japanese corridors inland.
141-148);
Another Volontieri Map? Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 13 (1973), pp.146-147;
Louis Ha Keloon The Foundation of the Catholic Mission in Hong Kong, 1841-1894.
![[Nagasaki kaigan okatame oyakunin]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/55552.jpg)
