Pedro Damiano da Odemira | Libro da imparare a giocar à scachi, [Venice, ?1564], Carl Jaenisch's copy

Pedro Damiano da Odemira 

Libro da imparare a giocare à scachi, con bellissimi sartiti, & molte suttilità. Revisto, et corretto... in lingua Spagnola, & Taliana, nuovamente Stampato [Venice: Steffano Zazzara, ?1564]

16mo (141 x 99 mm). Collation: A–H⁸ (H7–8 blank): 64 leaves, italic and some roman type, 28 lines plus headline, title-page with large woodcut of a chess game (same block as 4th edition), woodcuts of the 6 chessmen (same blocks as 5th edition), 92 woodcut chess diagrams (same blocks as 4th edition), woodcut initials, later vellum, dampstaining, browning to second half of textblock

Seventh (fourth undated) edition. 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. Sixteenth-century editions are rare at auction.

PROVENANCE:

Carl Ferdinand von Jaenisch (1813–1872, Finnish and Russian chess player and theorist), ownership inscription to title-page

LITERATURE:

USTC 825397