[? Gustavus Selenus (Augustus II, Duke of Brunswick Luneburg)] | Ludus Latrunculorum, contemporary manuscript

[? Gustavus Selenus (Augustus II, Duke of Brunswick Luneburg).]

Manuscript entitled "Ludus Latrunculorum", comprising an outline and analysis of the ancient game (30 pages) followed by various sequences of game play (122 pages), in German and Latin ("...Sequuntur varii modi trabendi lapides / primus modus... Lusus Damiani / Caput primum...Caput Decimumtertium"), with an engraving of players at chess (taken from the illustrated title page of the printed edition) pasted onto the front free endpaper within a floral border, 77 numbered leaves, 4to (120 x 155 mm), paper-covered boards, mid-seventeenth century, some light worming

The current manuscript is closely related to a printed text of the same title that was attributed to "Selenus" when first published in Frankfurt in 1647. The introductory text in the current manuscript comprises roughly the final third of the printed text, but the game plays that follow are not found in the printed text.

Ludus Latrunculorum (literally: "game of brigands") was a popular Roman two-player game of strategy played on a gridded board, similar to chess. Also like chess, game play was said to teach military tactics. There have been many attempts to reconstruct the game through the surviving classical sources, however the textual references to the game have not proved sufficient for any consensus to be reached on how the game was played. In the medieval period "Ludus Latrunculorum" was often employed as the Latin name for chess.