Church of the Saint Japanese Martyrs

The Church of Saint Japanese Martyrs, built in 1864 by the Minor Fathers, is a true rarity: it is one of the very few examples of a European church frescoed by a Japanese painter. The artist, Lucas Ruyzo Hasegawa, who died in Rome in 1967, made all the paintings, from those that decorate the side altars, to the ceiling, to the apse, where the 26 Japanese Franciscans martyred in 1597 in Nagasaki are represented. In the apse, on the lower left, you can see a self-portrait of the painter who, about these frescoes, said: “Every stroke was a prayer“. On the vault of the apse, moreover, in addition to Saint Francis Xavier, the first Jesuit to bring Christianity to Japan, to Mary with the child, from the oriental traits and Japanese clothes of the ‘500, and to Saint Firmina, patron saint of Civitavecchia, is represented Hasekura Tsunenaga, the first Japanese ambassador to Europe, who came to Civitavecchia in 1615 and particularly linked to the city that honored him with the statue placed in Viale Guglielmo Marconi, near Livorno Gate. On the ceiling, finally, stands the writing in Japanese characters that reads: “Holy martyrs of Japan“.