Carlo Cozio | Nuova Idea per lo Il Giuoco degli Scacchi, manuscript, 1766

Carlo Cozio, Count of Montiglio and Salabue.

Autograph working manuscript entitled "Nuova Idea per lo Il Giuoco degli Scacchi", in four books, with revisions throughout, with more extensive textual additions on loosely inserted gatherings and paper slips, 410 numbered pages (not including insertions), small 4to (190 x 130mm), contemporary vellum boards with manuscript title to spine ("Gioco de Scachi del' Conte Cozio. Originale 1747"), green silk ties, binding stained, some fraying to outer edges of text block

[with, loosely inserted:] typed letter signed by Robert Blass to Lothar Schmid, comparing the current manuscript with the printed edition of Cozio's work, 2 pages, 7 June 1961

Carlo Cozio, Count of Montiglio and Salabue (c.1715–1780), was a noted chess theorist. This work was later printed as Il giuoco degli scacchi (1766). The printed text is extensively augmented with additional material written after the completion of this manuscript, and has a dedication to the Duke of Savoy that is also not found in the manuscript. It was one of the most substantial and wide-ranging treatises on the game to have appeared hitherto. The first two books contain 228 opening variations and more than 200 sub-variations, covering a wide range of lines of play; the third book deals with the distinct laws of the game as played in Calabria; the fourth book contains 201 middle-game and end-game positions. A RARE AND IMPORTANT WORKING MANUSCRIPT OF A KEY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WORK.