Yōmei Bunko is a historical archive collected over the centuries by the Konoe family, the foremost of the five regent houses of the imperial court nobility. 

 

The collection includes one UNESCO Memory of the World, 8 National Treasures, and 60 Important Cultural Properties, as well as approximately 100,000 items including old records, diaries, letters, and antiquities handed down by the Konoe and Fujiwara families.

 

Yōmei Bunko Foundation was established in 1938 by Fumimaro Konoe (1891-1945), then head of the family and prime minister of Japan. Materials preserved in the archive illustrate over 1,000 years of Japan's history, ranging from the "Midō Kanpaku-ki", the diary in his own hand of Fujiwara no Michinaga (966 - 1028), one of the ancestors of the Konoe family, to 20th century materials relating to Fumimaro Konoe himself.

 

The visit includes the tour of the exhibition hall on the second level of the storehouse, and Kozan-so, a sukiya style building adjacent to the Yōmei Bunko (optional).