Jacobus de Cessolis | Opera nuova..., Venice, 1534, the Walker-Rimington-Wilson copy

Jacobus de Cessolis

Opera nuova nella quale se insegna il vero regimento delli huomini & delle donne di qualunque grado, stato, e condition esser si voglia... Costume delli huomini, & ufficcii delli nobeli, nuovamente Stampata. Venice: Francesco di Allesandro Bindoni, & Mapheo Pasini compagni, 1534

8vo (150 x 95 mm). Collation: A–F⁸: 48 leaves, italic type, 29 lines plus headline, final leaf with woodcut publisher's device, nineteenth-century morocco-backed boards, blank corners torn off last leaf, extremities slightly rubbed

WITH DISTINGUISHED PROVENANCE FROM TWO MAJOR ENGLISH CHESS COLLECTIONS.

Portraying chess pieces as an allegory for social hierarchy, Cessolis uses the game of chess as a basis for lessons on morality in four books, with each tackling a different aspect of chess and how it reflects social order. The chess board, Cessolis suggests, represents the city of Babylon; the pieces represent the different social ranks.

For other early editions of this work see lots 10–13 and 15.

PROVENANCE:

George Walker, inscription to endleaf ("G Walkers Copy from his Chess Library"), his sale in these rooms, 14 May 1874, lot 29; J.W. Rimington-Wilson, ownership inscription to front pastedown; by descent to R.H. Rimington-Wilson, his sale in these rooms, 28 February 1928, lot 281, £5 5s, Bernard Quaritch

LITERATURE:

USTC 821786; EDIT16 10963; OPAC SBN 000276; Schachlitteratur 481; VDL Geschichte I, supplement p. 123; KB 4243; BMC Italian Books p. 166; Brunet III, 481