ON CHESS
VIII - Chess Writers and Players
WE have already spoken of the appearance of a regular treatise on chess, by Jacobus de Cesolis, about the year 1200. This Cesolis, (whose name, we may observe, is spelt in upwards of twenty different ways,) is said to have been a native of the village of Cessoles, near the frontiers of Picardy and Champagne. His manuscript was translated into German verse by Conrad Ammenhusen, a monk of Stettin, in 1337. After the invention of printing, the work of Cesolis went through many editions and translations. Editions in Latin, German, Dutch, French, Italian, and English, appeared within a short period of each other. The English translation, by William Caxton, printed in 1474, is a small folio of 144 pages, dedicated "to the right noble, right excellent, and vertuous Prince George, Duc of Clarence, Erle of Warwyk and of Salysburye, grete Chamberlayn of Englonde, and leutenant of Irelond, oldest broder of Kynge Edward (IV.)" It begins thus: "I have put me indevour to translate a lityll book, late comen in to myn handes, out of frensh in to englishe, in which I find thauctorites, dictees, and stories of auncient doctours, philosophes, poetes, and of other wyse men which been recounted, and applied unto chesse."
This translation of Caxton's is the more interesting on account of its being the second book ever printed in England, and the first in which metal types were employed. The forms and names of the chess-pieces, as given by Cesolis, are as follows: The king sits on his throne, with a crown on his head, a sceptre in his right hand, and a globe in his left. The queen on a chair, with a mantle of ermine. The alfin, or bishop, is represented as a lawyer, seated, with a book outspread on his knees; and the distinction is drawn that he on the white square is for civil, and he on the black square for criminal cases. The knights are on horseback, in full armour. The rooks, legates, or vicars, are men on horseback, quite unarmed. The description of the pawns is, however, the most remarkable, on account of the variety in their form, and in the offices assigned to them. The king's pawn has a pair of scales in his right hand, in his left a measuring wand, and a purse hanging at his waist-band. The queen's pawn is a man seated in an arm-chair, with a book in one hand, a vial in the other, and various surgical instruments stuck in his girdle. This personage represents a physician, who, to be perfect, ought, according to our author, to be a grammarian, logician, rhetorician, astrologer, arithmetician, geometrician, and musician. The king's bishop's pawn is a man with a pair of shears in one hand, a knife in the other, an inkhorn at his button-hole, and a pen behind his ear. The queen's bishop's pawn is a man standing at his own door, with a glass of wine in one hand, a loaf in the other, and a bunch of keys at his girdle. The king's knight's pawn is a smith, with hammer and trowel. The queen's knight's pawn carries keys, and compasses, and an open purse. The king's rook's pawn is a husbandman, with hill-hook in hand, and a pruning knife at his girdle. The queen's rook's pawn, with dishevelled hair, and in rags, displays four dice in one hand, and a crust of bread in the other, a bag being suspended from his shoulder. All these pawns are defined by Caxton to represent the following description of persons:
Labourers, and tilingc of the erthe.
Smythes, and other werkes in yron and metals.
Drapers, and makers of cloth and notaries.
Marchaunts and chaungers.
Phisicyens and cirurgiens, and apotecaries.
Tavemers and hostelers.
Gardes of the cities and tollers and customers.
Ribaulds, players at dyse, and the messagers.
The second edition of The Game and Playe of the Chesse, (such was the title of Caxton's book,) appeared in 1490. It is decorated with seventeen prints, and has a curious preface, which, with the concluding paragraph of the work, also written by Caxton, we now lay before our readers.
The holy appostle and doctour of the peple, Saynt Poule, sayth in his epystle, Alle that is wryten unto our doctryne, and for our servying. Wherfore many noble clerkes have endevoyred them to wryte and compyle many notable werkys and historyes to the ende that it myght come to the knowledge and understondying of suche as ben ygnoraunt of which the nombre is infenyte, and accordying to the same saith Salamon that the nombre of foles is infenyte, and emong alle other good werkys it is a werke of ryght special recomendacion to enforme, and to late undstonde wysedom and vertue unto them that be not lernyd, ne can not dyscerne wysedom fro folye. Thene emonge whom there was an excellent doctour of dyvynyte in the royaume of fraunce of the ordre of thospytal of saynt ohns of iherusalem whiche entended the same and hath made a book of chesse moralysed, which at such time as i was resident in Brudgys in the counte of flaunders cam into my handes, which whan i had redde and overseen, me seined ful necessarye for to be had in englische,
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and in eschewing of ydlenes. And to thende that some which have not seen it ne understonde frenssh ne latyn, i delybered in myself to translate it into our maternal tonge, and when i had acheyved the said translacion i did doo sett in emprynte a certyn nombre of them, which anone were despesshed and solde. Wherfore by cause this said boke is ful of holsom wysedom and requysyte unto every estate and degree, i have purposed to emprynte it shewing therfore the figures of such, persones as
longen to the playe, in whom al estates and degrees ben comprysed, besechen al them that this litel werke shall see, here, or rede, to have me for excused for the rude and symple makyng and reducyng into our englisshe, and whereas is defaute to correcte and amende and in so doyng they shall deserve meryte and thanke, and i shall pray for them, that god of his grete mercy shal rewarde them in his everlastyng blisse in heven, to the whiche he brynge us, that wyth his precious blood redemed us Amen.
The closing paragraph is as follows:
And a man that lyveth in this wovlde without vertues liveth not as a man, but as a beste. Thenne let euery man of what condycion he be that redyth, or herith this litel book redde, take thereby ensample to amende hym.
The work of Cesolis, though it went through so many editions and translations, gave no rules for the playing of the game. This deficiency was soon after supplied in the treatises of Vicent and of Lucena, (both ascribed to the year 1495,) but more completely by that of Damiano, a Portuguese, in 1512. The latter work was originally written in Spanish and Italian, and consists chiefly of the openings of the game known as the Giuoco Piano. The "Ends of Games" and " Problems" difficult of solution, which conclude his volume, are many of them taken from the work of Lucena. His small book is, however, deficient in the principal openings, and expatiates chiefly on games where advantage is given. The work of Damiano was reprinted under the direction of D. Antonio Porto, who unjustly prefixed his own name as the author, although he had not made the slightest addition to the volume, or alteration of it. In 1527 Mark Jerome Vida, of Cremona, bishop of Alba, published a Latin poem on chess, called Scacchia Ludus; which has gone through many editions in Latin, Italian, French, and English. Pope notices this author in his Essay on Criticism:
Immortal Vida, on whose honoured brow,
The poet's bays, and critic's ivy grow.
And Warton, in his Essay on Pope, speaks of Vida's poem in the following terms: "It was a happy choice to write a poem on chess; nor is the execution less happy. The various stratagems and manifold intricacies of this ingenious game, so difficult to be described in Latin, are here expressed with the greatest perspicuity and elegance, so that, perhaps, the game might be learned from this description." That this poem was valued and admired by contemporary authors is plain from the language of Pasquier, who wrote in 1560, and thus speaks: "Jerom Vida represented this fine game of chess in the form of a battle, and his Latin verses are in the true spirit of Virgil." Specimens of the various English versification of this work are given by Twiss, but they do not appear to us sufficiently interesting for insertion here.
In 1561 appeared, in Spanish, the "Book of the liberal Invention and Art of the Game of Chess, by Ruy Lopez de Sigura, clerk, inhabitant of the town of Cafra. Directed to the illustrious lord, Don Garcia de Toledo.'' This work is said to have added little to the knowledge of chess; and the author, while censuring Damiano, and speaking contemptuously likewise of all the Italian players, was himself guilty of many errors, which were still further increased by his translator and printer. A few years after the publication of this book, the vanity of the author met with a severe check in the defeat he suffered in the presence of Philip II., king of Spain, as the following anecdote will show: A young man of Cutri, in Calabria, named Leonardo, went to Rome, during the pontificate of Gregory XIII., to study the law; but gave his attention much more to the study of chess, in which game he became so skilful, that though very young, and therefore called Il Puttino, the boy, he soon conquered all the best players. Ruy Lopez, who was an ecclesiastic, and at that time considered the first, chess-player in Europe, came to Rome at this time, to solicit the pope for a benefice which had then become vacant at the court of Philip II. of Spain. Having heard of the young Leonard's fame, he sough his acquaintance, and conquered him two following days; which vexed Leonardo so much that he immediately went to Naples, and devoted himself to the study and practice of chess for the space of two years. Returning from thence to his native place, he learned that his brother had been taken by corsairs, and chained to the oar. Leonardo set out to ransom him, and agreed with the reis or captain of the galley on the price of his dismissal, which was to be two hundred crowns. Finding that the captain understood chess, Leonardo engaged him in play, and succeeded in winning from him the price agreed on for his brother's ransom, and two hundred crowns besides. With this he returned to Naples; from thence he sailed to Genoa, Marseilles, and Barcelona, playing with and conquering all he met; and then travelled to Madrid, where he soon revenged himself on his old antagonist, Ruy Lopez, by beating him at chess in the presence of the king. On this occasion Philip presented Leonardo with a thousand crowns, besides jewels, furs, &c. The victor then went to Lisbon, where success and honours likewise attended him, and where he received the title of knight-errant. On revisiting Calabria, at a subsequent period, he was poisoned by some envious person in the palace of Prince Bisignano, and died in the forty-sixth year of his age. Such are some of the particulars of the life of Leonardo of Cutri, as given in the work Il Puttino, published by Salvio, of Naples, of whose reputation as a master of chess we shall speak in due order.
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Chess Archeology 
