The book of chess

by Jacobus de Cessolis

(from the back-cover)

"Chess is like life. And 'Checkmate!' like death. Whether the game and pieces represent war, court society or the world at large, in a general way and simply seen, the game has come to symbolise the world and death.

This metaphor was common in the thirteenth century when Jacob de Cessolis, a Dominican friar in the Lombard region of Italy, delivered a sermon based on the game. The sermon was so well received that his fellow friars insisted he write it out. His liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium (Book of the manners of men and the offices of the nobility), now simply called the Book of chess, was famous throughout Europe. It was translated into numerous languages and presents readers with a primer on the game and a look into a contemporary's view of the structure and ways of medieval society.

From kings and queens to farmers and gamblers, Jacob outlined the virtues and vices, obligations and inclinations of various members of the medieval world: those who governed, fought and worked, playing out their qualities on the chess-board."

121 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1474

Reviews

[Hernan Milan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Understanding the ancient Chess development

The book revealed the basic concepts of chess. It describes how each piece is part of a kingdom. Showing their worth, their qualities and their needs to the Kingdom. It also educated the players on how each piece should behave to be a successful contributor to the Kingdom, thereby educating people in how to conduct themselves. Superbly classical book from the Renaissance period.

[Kevin de Ataíde · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly entertaining high-medieval sermon on virtue and duty within European society. Oriented around the sixty-four square chess-board and its pieces and pawns. The strongest feature of this bold attempt to give character to the chessmen is the strong focus on community within the medieval city and the civic and Christian responsibility of the citizens. Weaker, but nevertheless clever, is the non-intuitive (for the modern reader) assignment of roles and duties to the chessmen. The movement of the pieces, etc., is alien to the modern player, except perhaps for the king and the rook. It is interesting that pieces have different kind of moves for starting play and for continuing play: the queen, for example, could reach far at the beginning but behaved more modestly and moved like a modern king for the rest of the game. Also, every piece but the rook could hop over its neighbours in the thirteenth century. Yes, an enjoyable book.