About the game of chess

Attributed to Jacopo de Barbari . Portrait of Luke Pacioli with a student ( Guidobaldo da Montefeltro ? Albrecht Dürer ?), 1495

Estimated portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, 1490s

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
eight									eight
7									7
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five									five
four									four
3									3
2									2
one									one
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci. Black to move, White to win ^[2]

Leonardo and Luca Bartolomeo Pacioli knew each other, both were in the service at the court of the Duke of Milan , Lodovico Sforza in 1497. In the treatise of Luke Bartolomeo Pacioli "On Divine Proportion" Leonardo acted as the author of the drawings. After the capture of Milan by the French in 1499, Pacioli and Leonardo left for Mantua , where they entered the service of the Marquis of Isabella D'Este ( Italian: Isabella d'Este , 1499-1503). She loved chess and held tournaments of the best chess players. Marquis and ordered a treatise on chess Pacioli ^[4] .

Isabella was the eldest daughter of Ercole I d'Este , Duke of Ferrara , and Eleanor of Neapolitan (daughter of King Ferdinand Neapolitan ). She was related by kinship or marriage with almost all the rulers in Italy and is known as the first lady of the Renaissance. Isabella d'Este received a very good education, played the lute and flute and had a beautiful voice, knew Greek and Roman history and classical literature, studied geographical maps and was engaged in astrology . In 1490, Isabella married a 25-year-old Francesco II Gonzaga , the Marquis of Mantua ^[5] .

Pacioli wrote a collection of chess problems approximately in the year 1500. The art historian Franco Rocco dates the collection to a wide interval between 1497 and 1508 ^[6] . Professor Attilio Bartoli Langeli and Assistant Professor Enzo Mattezini (from the University of Perugia) carried out a paleographic and linguistic analysis; in their opinion, the manuscript was created at the end of the XV and the beginning of the XVI century. The dating of a watermark on one of the pages sets a date not earlier than 1496, while a request for a printed privilege addressed to Venetian Doge Leonardo Loredano sets the dating no later than December 29, 1508 ^[7] .

The book was considered lost, but was found by Italian historian and archivist Duilio Contin ( Italian: Duilio Contin ) at the end of 2006 in the book collection of Count Guglielmo Coronini in Palazzo Coronini in Gorizia. Count Guglielmo Coronini bought it in 1963, along with other old books, from a “Venetian poet and bibliophile,” whose name remained unknown. Analysis of the collection led 70-year-old Milan sculptor and architect Franco Rocco. The consultant was Professor Carlo Pedretti , a specialist in the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Art critics have determined that the illustrations did not belong to the author of the treatise. The owners of the manuscript invited an expert from the Los Angeles Center for the Study of Heritage Leonardo da Vinci ( Armand Hammer Foundation), who must confirm or refute the Rocco hypothesis ^[4] .

Researchers attributed some of the illustrations of the Leonardo da Vinci Code. According to Rocco, Pacioli asked Leonardo to help him in the design of the treatise. It is known from the documents that Leonardo played chess. He composed rebuses, as chess problems were then called ^[8] . The Austrian painter and sculptor Franz von Muck even portrayed him in his painting “Leonardo da Vinci playing chess with his muse” (1890, Franz von Matsch , 1861–1942, Leonardo da Vinci playing chess with his muse ) ^[9] .

Franco Rocco determined that the drawings were composed by two different illustrators (presumably, Pacioli and Leonardo). He believes that almost half of the diagrams were compiled by Leonardo himself (he did the drawings with his left hand) ^[8] .

The manuscript was presented at an exhibition in the library of the count in the city of Gorizia in northern Italy ( Friuli region). The manuscript is owned by the Italian non-profit organization Coronini Cronberg Foundation ( Italian: Fondazione Palazzo Coronini Cronberg Onlus ), established in 1990 after the death of Count Coronini ^[10] . September 30, 2016 in Milan opened a new exhibition, where the book was presented. Franco Rocca presented his book “Leonardo e Luca Pacioli. L'evidenza ” ^[11] (“ Leonardo and Luca Pacioli. Evidence ”) of the publishing house Le Due Torri ^[8] .

The collection consists of 48 sheets of paper 150 x 110 millimeters (according to other data - 16 by 11.5 centimeters ^[12] ), that is, of twenty-four sheets of paper, approximately 150 x 220 millimeters in size, folded in half, which is a total of 96 pages ^[13] . It contains 114 chess diagrams with a description of a certain number of moves for each, presents several options for the development of individual games (depending on the task, using either the old or modern game rules). Each batch ends with foul language. Each batch is accompanied by a diagram in which the figures are painted in red and black. Usually in the treatises of this time they were denoted by the letters of the Latin alphabet ^[4] .

The drawings bear the imprint of the author's individuality and fantasy, at the same time they are exact in proportions and spatial position. Symbols are made in an elegant and recognizable manner of Leonardo. Franco Rocco believes that the proportions of the figures are calculated in accordance with the "golden section" , a problem that Leonardo was fascinated with. He also claims that the image of the queen (“the queen” in the terminology of that time) is similar to the images preserved on sheets 212 and 293 of the Atlantic Code by Leonardo ^[14] . The set of chess pieces, which the artist used to create illustrations for the treatise, was reconstructed ^[15] .

Chess theorists analyzed individual games from the collection ^[16] . Among them is Grandmaster Raymond Dennis Keane , the leading chess section in The Times . One of the collection diagrams includes a white pawn on d1, which is not allowed by the rules. Keen suggested that the problem should be solved using modern rules, and the pawn should be replaced by a queen . Keen described the tasks in the collection as "incredibly difficult" and "advanced for his time." Keen believes that it was Leonardo, not Pacioli, who created some of the tasks in the manuscript, including the one presented in his article ^[17] . Based on the reconstruction of the position presented by Kin by chess player James O'Fi, the combination was also reconstructed:

"one. ... F: e4 +; 2. F: e4 + Kraa; 3. La3 + C: a3; 4. Fe3 + Ld4 +; 5. Ф: d4 + Крb7; 6. Фd7 + Kraa; 7 F: e8 + Kbb7; 8 Fb8H.

- O'Fee, James. The Da Vinci decode mystery ^[2]

The position and combination (checkmate in three moves) on another illustration of the collection were also reconstructed:

"one. Сf3 + К: f3; 2. Lfe2 + Krd3; 3. LC3X (1 ... Kdd3 2. LC3X; another option is 1. ... Kre3; 2. Кf5 + Л: f5; 3. Фd2Х) ".

- Leonardo Da Vinci's 1500 year old Chess Puzzle ^[3]

• De Ludo Scachorum (Circulating Stacks Edition). Commentary (Italian) by D'Elia, D .; Contin, D .; Bartoli Langeli, A .; Mattesini, E .; Sanvito, A .. - Aboca Museum, 2007. - ISBN 9788895642086 .
• De Ludo Scachorum (Special Stacks Edition). Commentary (Italian) by D'Elia, D .; Contin, D .; Bartoli Langeli, A .; Mattesini, E .; Sanvito, A. .. - Aboca Museum, 2007. - 999 pcs . - ISBN 9788895642086 .

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  Leonardo da Vinci. Portrait of Isabella D'Este, customer treatise, 1500

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  De ludo schacorum. Text page

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  De ludo schacorum. Text page

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  De ludo schacorum. Text page

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  De ludo schacorum. Text page

• Chess in painting