The First Printed Book on Chess

Jacobus de Cessolis

Augsburg, Günther Zainer, 1477

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This is the first German edition of the first printed book on the most universal of all board games: chess. Divided into four books, Jacobus de Cessolis' 'De Ludo Scachorum' is not intended as a book of strategy, but rather a didactic allegory of human society and hierarchy.

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With 2 woodcut Maiblumen initials and 15 woodcut illustrations. – A fine copy with wide margins. Two lines of the bearing type (meant to be printed blind) accidentally printed in black. First quire loosened. – 16th -century blind-stamped pigskin on wooden boards, tooled with rolls and stamps to a panel design, four raised bands on spine, suede ties. Armorial supralibros stamped in gold on upper cover. – Recased, new endpapers. Housed in a modern green half morocco Solander box.

270 x 195 mm. 40 leaves.

144

of 257

Chess as a social allegory

Overview

This work is now sold.

The 13th-century Dominican monk, Jacobus de Cessolis, likely learned to play chess in Lombardy, considering his familiarity with Lombard chess rules. While he does focus on the moves that each piece on a chess board is able to play, de Cessolis is more concerned by the medieval social order of estates, and the hierarchy of society.

In four books, the author deals with the origins of the game of chess and its reason for invention, the way the pieces represent ranks in society (the pawns are interestingly represented as a farmer, blacksmith, weaver, and other labouring professions), and then the chessboard itself.

This work was extremely popular, with fifty manuscripts in German alone, and eight different translations in prose and poetry. The woodcut illustrations were also reproduced from the original, appearings as copies in Hienrich Knoblochtzer's Strasbourg editions of c. 1478 and 1483.

See this in our catalogue Heroes and Heroines, and our brochure, In Pursuit of Masterpieces.

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