[Portrait of Prince Toshihito]
Prince Toshihito (1579-1629), designer of the Katsura Imperial Villa was the youngest brother of Emperor Goyosei, and uncle of Emperor Gomizunoo. He excelled in arts and literature since his childhood, and his talents varied from drawing, music, tea ceremony, flower arrangement to kemari, or the ancient Japanese football, horse riding and archery. Above all things, he was particularly distinguished as a poet. At the age of 10, he was adopted by Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the man with the greatest power at the time, who did not have any children. Soon, however, his mistress Yodo gave birth to a baby boy Tsurumatsu. Hideyoshi gave the young prince Toshihito a fief of 300 bales and let him have a new house of the blood, Hachijonomiya. Later when Toshihito was 37, he was chosen as the groom for Princess Sen, daughter of Ieyasu Tokugawa. But the wedding was cancelled. Soon the Toyotomi government was overthrown and the Tokugawa family came into power, and this change cast a shadow over Toshihito's status. He had to keep his distance from the shogunate government and lost his presence in the central affairs, even though he was the emperor's uncle and the most cultured man of the day. This adverse circumstance probably gave Toshihito the motive to build such a villa, in the hope of recalling the prosperity of the Imperial Family back in the Heian period (8th - 11th century). It is said that the construction of this villa started around 1617, and three years later it was nearly completed and the prince was already accepting guests there. The villa was wasted for a while after Toshihito died in 1629, but the second owner, Prince Toshitada, was given subsidies by the Tokugawa government, and its renovation and extension began. back to [Koshoin] |