Tachi Sword (inscribed "Nagamitsu" (famous Totomi

Tachi Signed Nagamitsu: The Sword Nobunaga Left at Azuchi Castle

In June 1582, days after Oda Nobunaga died in the flames of Honno-ji temple in Kyoto, his betrayer Akechi Mitsuhide rode east to Azuchi Castle and emptied its storehouses. Among the treasures he carried off was a slender tachi, a curved sword forged some three centuries earlier in the province of Bizen. Mitsuhide handed it to one of his senior retainers, Tsuda Totomi-no-kami Shigehisa, and that single gift fixed the sword's name for the next four hundred years.

The blade is known today as the Totomi Nagamitsu, or more fully the Tsuda Totomi Nagamitsu. It bears a two-character signature, Nagamitsu, cut into its tang by one of the most celebrated swordsmiths of the Kamakura period. Designated a National Treasure of Japan on March 20, 1954, it now belongs to the Tokugawa Reimeikai Foundation and is kept at the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya, the institution that preserves the heirlooms of the Owari Tokugawa family.

Nagamitsu and the Osafune School

Nagamitsu worked in Osafune, a village on the Yoshii River in Bizen province, present-day Okayama Prefecture, during the second half of the thirteenth century. His father Mitsutada founded the Osafune school, which grew into the most prolific center of sword production in premodern Japan. Nagamitsu inherited the workshop as its second master, and connoisseurs have long judged his skill to approach that of his father.

His career divides into two recognizable phases. Early on he forged blades with exuberant choji hamon, the clove-blossom temper line associated with Mitsutada at his most flamboyant. In later years his style settled into something quieter and more restrained. The Totomi Nagamitsu belongs firmly to the early phase, and specialists regard it as one of the defining examples of that period of his work.

Its closest sibling is the Daihannya Nagamitsu in the Tokyo National Museum, another National Treasure from the same hand. The Agency for Cultural Affairs draws the comparison directly in its designation record: in brilliance the Totomi Nagamitsu stands equal to the Daihannya, and in soundness of condition it surpasses it.

Why It Is a National Treasure

The blade measures 72.1 centimeters along its cutting edge, with a curvature of 2.3 centimeters. At some point it was shortened at the tang, a common fate for old tachi adapted to later fighting styles, yet it kept the deep curve near the hilt and the strong flare at the base that mark a thirteenth-century sword. The point is of the compact, stout type called ikubi kissaki, literally a boar's neck, a shape characteristic of the mid-Kamakura decades.

Hold the published photographs at an angle and the surface details begin to separate. The steel shows a fine, tightly packed itame grain, over which floats a misty reflection called midare-utsuri, a shadow of the temper line repeated in the body of the blade. The hamon itself is a procession of choji clusters mixed with kawazuko, rounded heads on narrow stalks that Japanese connoisseurs likened to tadpoles. The nioiguchi, the boundary of the hardened edge, is described in the official record as clear and tight, with abundant ashi and yo, the small streaks and detached spots of hardening that animate a fine Bizen edge.

The government first designated the sword an Important Cultural Property on November 14, 1953, and elevated it to National Treasure four months later. The designation record praises the work as brilliant in execution with both the steel surface and the temper line in healthy condition, a rare state for a blade that has passed through war, plunder, and seven centuries of handling.

The shortened tang still carries the original two-character signature and three peg holes, physical traces of the remountings the sword received as it moved from owner to owner.

A Provenance Written by the Sengoku Wars

The sword appears in the Kyoho Meibutsu Cho, the catalogue of celebrated blades compiled under the Tokugawa shogunate in the early eighteenth century, which records it as the Totomi Nagamitsu. The name honors Tsuda Totomi-no-kami Shigehisa, who lived from 1549 to 1634, long enough to carry his trophy from the age of Nobunaga into the settled decades of Tokugawa peace.

After Mitsuhide fell to Toyotomi Hideyoshi at Yamazaki, only eleven days after Honno-ji, Tsuda drifted for a time before entering the service of the Maeda family, lords of Kaga and the wealthiest domain in Japan. There the sword passed to his new masters. Accounts of the transfer differ in detail: the Tokugawa Art Museum explains that Tsuda presented it to Maeda Toshitsune, the third lord, though one museum text names the second lord Toshinaga, while the national database lists Maeda Tsunanori, the fifth lord, as the holder who sent it onward. All sources agree on what came next. The Maeda presented the blade to Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the fifth shogun, and in 1709 the sixth shogun Ienobu granted it to Tokugawa Yoshimichi, fourth lord of the Owari branch in Nagoya.

From that moment the sword never left the Owari Tokugawa collection. When the family converted its holdings into a museum in 1935, the Totomi Nagamitsu entered public view for the first time in its history.

Seeing the Sword in Nagoya

The Tokugawa Art Museum displays its swords in rotation, and the Totomi Nagamitsu is not on permanent view. Before planning a visit around it, check the museum's exhibition schedule or its online collection search, both available in English. When the blade does appear, it is usually shown bare on a lacquered stand under directed light, the ideal condition for catching the utsuri and the clove-shaped crests of the hamon.

Even without the Nagamitsu on display, the museum rewards the trip. Its collection of daimyo furnishings runs past ten thousand items, including the celebrated twelfth-century illustrated scrolls of the Tale of Genji and one of the largest sword holdings of any museum in Japan. The galleries reconstruct the formal spaces of the Owari residence, so the weapons, tea utensils, and Noh costumes appear in something close to their original settings.

Next door, the Tokugawaen garden offers a stroll through a daimyo landscape garden of ponds and seasonal plantings, and the adjacent Hosa Library holds the family's books and maps. The museum opens from 10:00 to 17:00, with last entry at 16:30, and closes on Mondays, or the following weekday when Monday is a holiday, as well as over the New Year period. Admission varies with the exhibition and was revised in April 2026, so confirm current fees on the official site. From Nagoya Station, the Me-guru sightseeing loop bus and city bus route Kikan-2 both reach the Tokugawaen Shindeki stop in about thirty minutes, a three-minute walk from the entrance. JR Ozone Station on the Chuo Line is roughly fifteen minutes away on foot.