Ruy López de Sigura | Il giuoco de gli scacchi di Rui Lopez, Venice, 1584, first edition in Italian

Ruy López de Sigura

Il giuoco de gli scacchi di Rui Lopez (trans. Giovanni Domenico Tarsia). Venice: Presso Cornelio Arrivabene, 1584

FIRST EDITION IN ITALIAN, 4to (200 x 147 mm). Collation: *⁴ A–DD⁴: 112 leaves, italic and roman type, 27 lines plus headline, title-page with woodcut device, woodcut headpieces and initials, woodcut illustrations of chessboard and pieces, M2–4 bound out of sequence, later vellum-backed boards, new endpapers, washed, title-page slightly soiled, some browning and spotting elsewhere, marginal repair to colophon, extremities worn

First Italian translation of López de Sigura's Libro de la invencion liberal y arte del juego del Axedrez, published in 1561. This important text on the theory of chess was the first major chess book since Damiano da Odemira's Libro da imparare giocare a scachi in 1512, joining the seminal work as one of the standard sixteenth-century textbooks on chess. Other translations were published in French (1609) and German (1616). See lots 42, 44–45.

LITERATURE:

VDL Geschichte I, p. 348; Schachlitteratur 3006; KB 372; Adams L1475