Giuseppe di Chiara (1602 – 24 August 1685) was an Italian Jesuit missionary active in 17th century Japan.Reclaiming the Universal: Intercultural Subjectivity in the Life and Work of Endo Shusaku
, uky.edu; accessed 15 January 2017. Chiara was born in Palermo, Kingdom of Sicily. He entered Japan at a time when Christianity was strictly forbidden, in an attempt to locate fellow priest Cristóvão Ferreira who had apostatized his Christian faith due to torture by Japanese authorities in 1633. After the Shimabara Rebellion in 1638, Chiara arrived on the island of Oshima, but was arrested in June 1643 and then incarcerated at a prison named

Kirishitan The Japanese term , from Portuguese ''cristão'' (cf. Kristang), meaning "Christian", referred to Catholic Christians in Japanese and is used in Japanese texts as a historiographic term for Catholics in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries. ...

Yashiki ( ja, 吉利支丹屋敷, Christian Residence) in Edo."Bones of 18th-century Italian priest shed new light on Japan's Christian past", Agence France-Presse, June 02, 2016
/ref> He also was tortured and eventually became an apostate as well. He later married a Japanese woman, taking the name and

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

status of her late husband, Okamoto San'emon (

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

: 岡本三右衛門), and lived in Japan until his death on 24 August 1685 in Edo, at the age of 83. His remains were cremated.

In popular culture

Chiara was the historical basis for the lead character of Sebastião Rodrigues in the novel ''

Silence Silence is the absence of ambient audible sound, the emission of sounds of such low intensity that they do not draw attention to themselves, or the state of having ceased to produce sounds; this latter sense can be extended to apply to the c ...

'' by

Shūsaku Endō was a Japanese author who wrote from the rare perspective of a Japanese Catholic. Internationally, he is known for his 1966 historical fiction novel ''Silence'', which was adapted into a 2016 film of the same name by director Martin Scorsese. ...

. He was portrayed by David Lampson in the 1971 film version and by

Andrew Garfield Andrew Russell Garfield (born 20 August 1983) is an English and American actor. He has received various accolades, including a Tony Award, a BAFTA TV Award and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards. ''Time' ...

in the 2016 film version.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chiara, Giuseppe 1602 births 1685 deaths Former Christians Italian expatriates in Japan 17th-century Italian Jesuits Italian Roman Catholic missionaries Jesuit missionaries in Japan Foreign samurai in Japan Kingdom of Sicily people