Notes on the Manuscript Precursors of Collado's Ars grammaticæ Iaponicæ lingvæ in the British Library (Sloane Ms. 3459) and Especially Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Borg. lat. 771)

Printed in Rome in 1632, Diego Collado’s Ars grammaticae Iaponicae lingvae was the earliest grammar of Japanese ever to be printed in Europe. It is well known that this edition in Latin was preceded by a manuscript version in Spanish, a copy of which is kept at the British Library. At the end of the 19th century Ernest Satow had already drawn scholars’ attention to another Spanish as well as to an Italian manuscript at the Museo Borgiano. Their later whereabouts were however deemed unknown for about a century. The “rediscovery” of these manuscripts, which are now in the possession of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, enables us to give some preliminary comments especially on the two Spanish manuscripts as well as on their relationship to each other and to the Latin edition.