26 Martyrs of Japan. Crucified in 1597 & Canonized in 1862. Unrecorded.

[Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan]. Abildung der 26. hl. Martirer welche den 5ten Februar 1597 zu Nangasaki in Japan den Tod für den Glauben Jesu gelitten, und heilig gesprochen zu Rom den 8ten Juni. 1862. Graz: “Graz b. F. Nowohradzky” [i.e. Franz Nowohradsky], s.a. [1862 or shortly thereafter]. [15.7 x 112 cm], [1] f. lithograph. Minor staining, vertical centerfold.  
 
 
Unrecorded devotional print celebrating the ‘Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan,’ who were crucified in Nagasaki in 1597 and canonized in 1862 by Pope Pius IX (1792-1878). The item—produced in Graz, Austria, by Franz Nowohradsky (1811-87)—was no doubt made shortly after the Twenty-Six Martyrs were made saints.
 
The 1862 canonization of the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Japan occurred between the breaking of the Tokugawa seclusion by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853/54 and Japan’s stepping out of isolation during the Meiji Restoration beginning in 1868.
 
Franz Nowohradsky’s print depicts on the left the crucifixion of the Twenty-Six Martyrs, who by the order of the samurai-daimyo Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-98), had been tortured and forced to march some 600 miles from Kyoto to Nagasaki. 
 
On the right is a litany of the saints: The first six on the list were foreign Franciscans (Alcantarines), including Felipe de Jesús (b 1572), the first Mexican saint and patron saint of Mexico City. There follow the names of three Japanese Jesuits, the most prominent of whom is Paul Miki (b. 1562). The remaining names are those of the martyred Japanese Franciscan Tertiaries. Below the list is a German prayer to the martyrs. 
 
 
This print is not located by OCLC, KVK, Omnia, or the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek.
 
* R. Roldán-Figueroa, The Martyrs of Japan: Publication History and Catholic Missions in the Spanish World (Spain, New Spain, and the Philippines, 1597-1700); F. V. Williams, The Martyrs of Nagasaki.