Pedro Damiano da Odemira | Libro da imparare giocare a scachi, Rome, 1524, third edition of the first Italian chess book, 19th-century red morocco, Giovan Battista Cini's copy

Pedro Damiano da Odemira 

Libro da imparare giocare a scachi: & de belitissimi partiti revisti & recorrecti con summa diligentia emendati da molti famosissimi giocatori. In lingua spagnola & italiana. Novamente stampato. Rome: Antonio Blado, 21 November 1524

8vo (142 x 101 mm). Collation, A–Q4: 64 leaves, roman type, 25 lines plus headline, title-page with woodcut illustration of chess players, further in-text woodcut illustrations, attractively bound in nineteenth-century red morocco by Zaehnsdorff, edges ruled in gilt, spine lettered in gilt, red silk endpapers, inner dentelles, outer margin of title-page trimmed close, discreet tissue repair at margin of final text leaf

EXTREMELY RARE THIRD EDITION (THE BLADO EDITION) OF THE FIRST ITALIAN CHESS BOOK, WITH FASCINATING EARLY PROVENANCE. This copy bears the ownership inscription of Giovan Battista Cini (c. 1525–c. 1586), the Florentine playwright at the court of the Medici.

Until Ruy Lopez (see lot 42), Damiano's Libro da imparare giocare a scachi was the standard sixteenth-century textbook on chess, addressing numerous topics, including openings and blindfold chess. It was the first book to state that the far-right square on the row closest to each player must be white.

PROVENANCE:

Giovan Battista Cini (c. 1525–c. 1586): ownership inscription to front free endpaper ("Di Giovambatista Cini n^o 33")

LITERATURE:

USTC 825393 (listing just 3 institutional copies); EDIT16 39926; van der Linde I, 341