A few years ago a learned bibliophile, stumbled on a 500 years old
manuscript hidden among the funds of an Italian library and
recognized it as the handwritten draft of a mythical book, thought
lost and for centuries, actively but vainly sought after. "DE LUDO
SCACHORUM" lost opus of Luca Pacioli, Franciscan friar, father of
modern accounting, friend, counsellor, teacher & contributor to
the century's incomparable genius, Leonardo da Vinci. The booklet
is mesmerizing. It is a hand sketched draft of hundreds of
complicated chess studies that Luca Pacioli must have been
collecting over a long span of time. Now, perusing the booklet
something catches your attention and the more you look at it the
more it becomes evident. While the writing is Pacioli's, two hands
instead had been there penning in the chess pieces, the first with
scholarly diligence the second with artistic swiftness. Whose?
Luca's and Leonardo's. They were friends, congregating and
travelling together, they had a history of partnership Leonardo
having illustrated Luca's DE DIVINA PROPORTIONE. It is clear: Luca
was set to prepare another yet of his popularising textbooks and
Leonardo had lent to his friend his "incomparable left hand" once
again. Obviously the possible implication of Leonardo da Vinci in
the drafting of the manuscript could not, not to be taken into
consideration. And it was rejected. Rightly, at times like ours,
adept to Dan Brown's like flights of fancy, doubt is a virtue and
suspicion should be "de rigueur" which means that a lasting grudge
must not be held to the "expert" who, possibly startled by the
news, not having been warned or seen the manuscript, quipped, "the
silly season on Leo never closes." In reality the discovery of Luca
Pacioli's lost manuscript heralds, without doubt, that the "a la
rabiosa" problems therein reported are of Leonardo's hand and we
well know that Leonardo penned between 1487 and 1490 a rebus "I a
roccha ro'" (I shall castle) confirming his perfect knowledge of
the games new rules. These can be traced back to the coronation of
queen Isabella of Spain in the year 1474 and to her crowning are
dated the new powers attributed to the Bishop and the Queen whose
status of most powerful piece on the chessboard justified the new
rules nickname of "mad queen" or "a la rabiosa." Yet nothing is
said at that time about castling, that important move absolutely
necessary in modern chess to counterbalance the overpowering new
status of the Queen. Nothing, from 1474 until Leonardo's rebus of
1487. Would it be its inventor Leonardo should then be considered,
if such hypothetical case were true, not only the co-author as he
is, of "DE LUDO SCACHORUM" and designer of the chess pieces therein
drafted but, as well and rightfully, one among the major: FATHER OF
MODERN CHESS. Time flies; while the excitement due to the discovery
of Luca Pacioli's lost work is ineluctably subsiding, so the focus
on this other of Leonardo's prodigious accomplishment is quietly
worming its way into the cosy corners of expert knowledge and world
oblivion. To avoid this fate this book, LEONARDO & LUCA PACIOLI
- THE EVIDENCE, is set to confirm that the chess design is indeed
the work of Leonardo. That two hands have been drawing the
booklet's chess pieces and that, so great was his genius and so
swift his incomparable left hand, that "the season on Leo still
brings beautiful fruits." Supporting the evidence, you'll find, in
appendix, a study of the Vitruvius Man showing its exacting
geometrical structure, further to a deep reflection and elaboration
of the principles Leonardo and Luca Pacioli outlined in DE DIVINA
PROPORTIONE. In truth, the design of the Vitruvian Man, based on an
extraordinary conception of the Golden Section, stands as a
paradigm for the geometric structure and proportions of the DE LUDO
SCHACORUM chessmen set. Wonder and enjoy
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