Sanada Family Materials

Historical Material relating to the Sanada Family 真田氏史料集(Sanada-shi Shiryô-shû), 上田市立博物館(Ueda City Museum), 1983, 1992, 151 pages.

In 1983 the city of Ueda, known as the place where Sanada Masayuki built his castle, held an exhibition marking the 400th anniverary of the castle. This book is a catalogue of the exhibit, with commentaries giving the background. The exhibit included items relating to the Sanada clan held in many collections, especially that of the Sanada family, who remained as daimyo in Matsushiro in Shinano province until the Restoration, as well as from Osaka (the Osaka Summer Campaign Screen), etc. There are photographs of items in the exhibit, and, notably, there are transcriptions (horray!) of all the documents, which include letters from Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kagekatsu, Hideyoshi, Ieyasu, Hidetada, Ishida Mitsunari, etc. There are also photos of related places.

Anyone interested in the Sanada family should try to get this. Even if you cannot read Japanese well, since there are so many pictures, even reading just the captions will be useful.

The museum still has some of the objects and originals and copies of documents on display.

The museum also has a good book on Ueda Castle (上田城) in the same series, but a reader who cannot read Japanese probably would not find it useful.

Book Information

• Ueda City Museum, Historical Material relating to the Sanada Family (真田氏史料集) (Sanada-shi Shiryô-shû), Japan, 1992, 151 pages.
• Ueda City Museum, Ueda Castle (上田城),1988, 168 pages.

Purchase Links

The books can be purchaced through the museum at ¥1000 and ¥900. A list of the museum's books can be found at http://museum.umic.ueda.nagano.jp/hakubutsukan/gaiyou/sassi.html. The museum e-mail is hakubutukan@city.ueda.nagano.jp

• Amazon.com Japan

(Note the price given by the museum is about a 10th of that given by Amazon, but payment might be a problem for those living abroad. Interested people could ask the museum if it would allow payment by international postal order.)