De ludo scacchorum
Encyclopedia
De ludo scacchorum or De ludo scachorum , also known as Schifanoia (the Boredom Dodger), is a manuscript
on the game of chess
written around 1500 by Luca Pacioli
, a leading mathematician
of the Renaissance
. Created in the times when rules of the game
(especially the way queen
and bishop
move) were evolving to the ones we know today, De ludo scacchorum contains over a hundred chess problem
s, to be solved – depending on the problem – using the old or the modern rules.
The long-lost manuscript was rediscovered in 2006 and gathered public attention in 2008, after the suggestion that the chess piece
s in its illustrations were designed or perhaps even drawn by Leonardo da Vinci
.
, Italy
. The owner, count Guglielmo Coronini, bought it alongside other old books from an unnamed "Venetian
poet and bibliophile" in 1963. De ludo scacchorum gathered public attention in February 2008, after Franco Rocco, who was researching the work, suggested that the chess piece
s in diagrams illustrating it were designed or perhaps even drawn by Leonardo da Vinci
.
created De ludo scacchorum at the beginning of the 16th century, soon after the new way of movement for queen
and bishop
was introduced to the rules of chess
in the 1470s, making those pieces considerably stronger. In addition, pawn
promotion
became more dangerous, since getting an additional queen now had bigger impact on the game. The forty-eight pages long manuscript contains over a hundred educational positions and chess problem
s, drawn in red and black, featuring both the original and the new rules, the latter known as a la rabiosa (meaning "mad" or "angry" in Spanish
), a reference to the enhanced powers of the queen.
. De ludo scacchorum was created somewhere after 1499, when they both fled from Milan
to Mantua
(after the former was invaded by Louis XII of France
) where they were protected by Isabella d'Este
, a chess enthusiast to whom the book is dedicated.
The pieces illustrating the manuscript have been described as "futuristic", even by today's standards. In his The Times
article, Grandmaster Raymond Keene
described that they first appear at the start of the book, where they are drawn in array, and that this drawing is artistically superior to the pieces in diagrams in the book itself. It is thus possible that Leonardo may have created the "original designs" featured at the beginning, while the pieces illustrating the rest of manuscript were drawn by someone else. The theory of Leonardo's involvement is also further supported by the facts that the design for queen is very similar to a fountain drawn by the artist in the Codex Atlanticus
, that proportion of the pieces follow the principle of the golden ratio
, which fascinated both polymaths and because the pieces were drawn using both left and right hand, and Leonardo is known to be left-handed.
analyzed Pacioli's knowledge of the subject after one of the problems from the book (pictured above) was published first by The Guardian
and later in other places, including Susan Polgar
's blog. Initially, it was not known whether it is supposed to be solved using the old or the new rules. Moreso, the diagram featured a white pawn on the first rank (on d1 square), an illegal position. Raymond Keene concluded it should be solved using modern rules, while the pawn should be replaced with a white knight, as it was most likely drawn mistakenly. Keene described the puzzle as "fiendishly difficult" and "highly advanced for its time", while Richard Eales noted "nothing like this puzzle has so far been found in other publications, or the older manuscripts or printed chess books".
Keene has called the author a "chess genius", because of how he was able to quickly develop a deep understanding of the way the new rules will change chess. He also believes that it is possible Leonardo created some of the problems in the manuscript, including the one presented by The Guardian.
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
on the game of chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
written around 1500 by Luca Pacioli
Luca Pacioli
Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli was an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and seminal contributor to the field now known as accounting...
, a leading mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. Created in the times when rules of the game
Rules of chess
The rules of chess are rules governing the play of the game of chess. While the exact origins of chess are unclear, modern rules first took form during the Middle Ages. The rules continued to be slightly modified until the early 19th century, when they reached essentially their current form. The...
(especially the way queen
Queen (chess)
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...
and bishop
Bishop (chess)
A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
move) were evolving to the ones we know today, De ludo scacchorum contains over a hundred chess problem
Chess problem
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by somebody using chess pieces on a chess board, that presents the solver with a particular task to be achieved. For instance, a position might be given with the instruction that White is to move first, and checkmate Black in two...
s, to be solved – depending on the problem – using the old or the modern rules.
The long-lost manuscript was rediscovered in 2006 and gathered public attention in 2008, after the suggestion that the chess piece
Chess piece
Chess pieces or chessmen are the pieces deployed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. The pieces vary in abilities, giving them different values in the game...
s in its illustrations were designed or perhaps even drawn by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
.
Discovery
The manuscript was discovered in 2006 by book historian Duilio Contin, in the 22,000-volume Palazzo Coronini Cronberg library in GoriziaGorizia
Gorizia is a town and comune in northeastern Italy, in the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. It is located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering Slovenia. It is the capital of the Province of Gorizia, and it is a local center of tourism, industry, and commerce. Since 1947, a twin...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. The owner, count Guglielmo Coronini, bought it alongside other old books from an unnamed "Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
poet and bibliophile" in 1963. De ludo scacchorum gathered public attention in February 2008, after Franco Rocco, who was researching the work, suggested that the chess piece
Chess piece
Chess pieces or chessmen are the pieces deployed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. The pieces vary in abilities, giving them different values in the game...
s in diagrams illustrating it were designed or perhaps even drawn by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
.
History and contents
Luca PacioliLuca Pacioli
Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli was an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and seminal contributor to the field now known as accounting...
created De ludo scacchorum at the beginning of the 16th century, soon after the new way of movement for queen
Queen (chess)
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...
and bishop
Bishop (chess)
A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
was introduced to the rules of chess
Rules of chess
The rules of chess are rules governing the play of the game of chess. While the exact origins of chess are unclear, modern rules first took form during the Middle Ages. The rules continued to be slightly modified until the early 19th century, when they reached essentially their current form. The...
in the 1470s, making those pieces considerably stronger. In addition, pawn
Pawn (chess)
The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...
promotion
Promotion (chess)
Promotion is a chess rule describing the transformation of a pawn that reaches its eighth rank into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same color . The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square and is part of the move. Promotion is not limited to pieces that have...
became more dangerous, since getting an additional queen now had bigger impact on the game. The forty-eight pages long manuscript contains over a hundred educational positions and chess problem
Chess problem
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by somebody using chess pieces on a chess board, that presents the solver with a particular task to be achieved. For instance, a position might be given with the instruction that White is to move first, and checkmate Black in two...
s, drawn in red and black, featuring both the original and the new rules, the latter known as a la rabiosa (meaning "mad" or "angry" in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
), a reference to the enhanced powers of the queen.
Leonardo's involvement
It is known that Pacioli and Leonardo were friends, and that Leonardo provided illustrations for Pacioli's De divina proportioneDe divina proportione
De Divina Proportione is a famous book on mathematics written by Luca Pacioli around 1497 in Milan. Today only two versions of the original manuscript are believed still to exist...
. De ludo scacchorum was created somewhere after 1499, when they both fled from Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
to Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
(after the former was invaded by Louis XII of France
Louis XII of France
Louis proved to be a popular king. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes...
) where they were protected by Isabella d'Este
Isabella d'Este
Isabella d'Este was Marchesa of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dressing was copied by women throughout Italy and at the French court...
, a chess enthusiast to whom the book is dedicated.
The pieces illustrating the manuscript have been described as "futuristic", even by today's standards. In his The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
article, Grandmaster Raymond Keene
Raymond Keene
Raymond Dennis Keene OBE is an English chess Grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author.p196 He won the British Chess Championship in 1971, and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974. In 1976 he became the second...
described that they first appear at the start of the book, where they are drawn in array, and that this drawing is artistically superior to the pieces in diagrams in the book itself. It is thus possible that Leonardo may have created the "original designs" featured at the beginning, while the pieces illustrating the rest of manuscript were drawn by someone else. The theory of Leonardo's involvement is also further supported by the facts that the design for queen is very similar to a fountain drawn by the artist in the Codex Atlanticus
Codex Atlanticus
The Codex Atlanticus is a twelve-volume, bound set of drawings and writings by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest such set; its name indicates its atlas-like breadth. It comprises 1,119 leaves dating from 1478 to 1519, the contents covering a great variety of subjects, from flight to weaponry to...
, that proportion of the pieces follow the principle of the golden ratio
Golden ratio
In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.61803398874989...
, which fascinated both polymaths and because the pieces were drawn using both left and right hand, and Leonardo is known to be left-handed.
Critical analysis
Chess theoreticiansChess theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory as how the game should be played...
analyzed Pacioli's knowledge of the subject after one of the problems from the book (pictured above) was published first by The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and later in other places, including Susan Polgar
Susan Polgar
Susan Polgar is a Hungarian-American chess Grandmaster...
's blog. Initially, it was not known whether it is supposed to be solved using the old or the new rules. Moreso, the diagram featured a white pawn on the first rank (on d1 square), an illegal position. Raymond Keene concluded it should be solved using modern rules, while the pawn should be replaced with a white knight, as it was most likely drawn mistakenly. Keene described the puzzle as "fiendishly difficult" and "highly advanced for its time", while Richard Eales noted "nothing like this puzzle has so far been found in other publications, or the older manuscripts or printed chess books".
Keene has called the author a "chess genius", because of how he was able to quickly develop a deep understanding of the way the new rules will change chess. He also believes that it is possible Leonardo created some of the problems in the manuscript, including the one presented by The Guardian.
External links
- Palazzo Coronini Cronberg official website – contains a photograph of a page from the book