KAGOSHIMA -- Italian missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti (1668-1714) landed on southwestern Japan's island of Yakushima in 1708, when the country was closed to foreigners in its "sakoku" period. Now, a nonprofit on the island is fundraising to build a museum dedicated to him.

The Yakushima Sidotti Memorial Museum Establishment Committee, or the Yakushima Future Works nonprofit organization, is seeking 50 million yen (about $317,000) in donations to fund the building of a memorial hall in honor of Sidotti.

The organization, chaired by Tomoko Furui, hopes to start construction of the museum in fall 2025 near where the missionary landed, and open it to the public in 2026.

Sidotti was born in Palermo on the island of Sicily, and made his way to Yakushima from Rome through the Philippines. Landing on the coast of the village of Koidomari, what is now the Koshima settlement on the island, he interacted with a villager named Tobei, but was captured by authorities and taken from Yakushima. In Tokyo, called Edo at the time, where Sidotti was sent, he was accused of attempting to convert a Japanese husband and wife to Christianity, and was sent to an underground jail, where he died in 1714.

When in Tokyo, Sidotti had been interrogated by Confucian scholar Arai Hakuseki. Based on the knowledge Arai gleaned from the Western-educated Sidotti, he wrote the "Seiyo Kibun," which included information on the state of affairs overseas, geography and more.

The group envisions the museum to be a single-story, 150-square-meter hall constructed using locally sourced wood, earth and plaster. The facility will house a meeting space, cafe and exhibition room, along with the already-completed observation tower recalling the time Sidotti landed in the area.

Through photos, illustrations and other items displayed in panels and as video footage, the exhibition room will inform visitors about Sidotti's lifetime and historical backdrop. Arts and crafts and historical materials are also set to be shown.

As a project commissioned by the Kagoshima Prefectural Government in fall 2024, Furui authored a picture book about Sidotti, "The Story of Sidotti's Landing on Yakushima," released in four languages: Japanese, English, Italian and French. It is being distributed to tourists in hopes of building momentum toward the hall's construction.

Furui said, "Yakushima, the landing site, is the appropriate place to inherit Sidotti's legacy. We would like to build the memorial hall as a new base of attraction for Yakushima and a space that connects people with history and nature."

For inquiries or to make donations, the nonprofit has an English site at https://www.yakushima-sidotti-museum.com/en/ and can be reached by contact form on the site or via email at info@yakushima-sidotti-museum.com.

(Japanese original by Takashi Umeyama, Kagoshima Bureau)