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In 1627, Pope Urban VIII beatified twenty-six martyrs who had been crucified thirty years earlier in Nagasaki, Japan. This beatification was exceptional, not merely for its sheer speed, but also because these were the first martyrs so blessed from new missionary territories. In permitting their veneration within the Franciscan and Jesuit orders, the Church not only recognized the value of their sacrifice, but also confirmed a certain view of Japan as the land of martyrs. This book recreates the process that led to this formation, and the diffusion of such rhetoric on the Japanese martyrs in Europe. In doing so, it showcases a double perspective (“à parts égales”), built on the rigorous analysis of both European and Japanese sources. Integrating such stories within a broader historical and historiographical perspective, it clarifies the impact of the term “martyrdom” in the descriptions of Japan in early modern Europe. It demonstrates how the missionary orders and the Church came to promote the martyrs of Japan, the ideological implications of this newfound recognition, as well as the worldview to which this spreading discourse gave birth. Later, the rhetoric of Japan as the land of martyrs would be amplified and diffused all over the Catholic world. Such “reflections,” in iconography, literature, or even theater, produced an “imaginary Japan,” a land of heroic martyrs, tyrants, cruel executioners, or converted princes, which would haunt the entire modern period.