This is a self portrait of Leonardo da Vinci
‘Da Vinci link’ to chess drawings
By Christian Fraser
BBC News, Rome
Researchers believe early illustrations of how to play the game of chess, found in a long-lost Italian manuscript, may have been drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.
Da Vinci was a close friend of Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli, who wrote the manuscript.
Pacioli wrote the book – a collection of puzzles called “De ludo scacchorum” found in a private library last year – around the year 1500, experts say.
The puzzles are very similar to those found in daily newspapers today.
The manuscript contains 48 pages of carefully drawn diagrams, each representing a possible chess scenario, to which Pacioli offered his solutions – checkmate in a set number of moves.
It was not the first of its kind, but one of the most striking things about it, aside from the practical demonstrations of the game, is the novelty and beauty of its illustrations.
The king, queen, bishop and knight are all represented by elegant and distinctive symbols, coloured in black and red ink; so finely drawn that it soon became clear these must be the hand of another artist.
Independent assessment
The researchers say they are confident these are the drawings of Leonardo and they have asked experts in the United States to make a second, independent assessment.
The manuscript was discovered last year among thousands of volumes in a private library in Gorizzia, north-east Italy.
Pacioli and Leonardo were working and collaborating on each other’s works around the year 1500.
Leonardo is thought to have understood chess and maybe he even played it.
He made a reference to a technical term from the game in one of his many manuscripts.
Source: BBC News
He’s the greatest painter ever. I think he’s in a league of his own.
The diagrams could be interesting, partly because it hints that they were smart enuf to have pawns of opposite colors point in opposite directions.
I care more about the surrounding text. This 1499 manuscript is dated just after the 1475 date often given as when the final major chess rules changes were put into place.
I presume the manuscript could help either confirm or dis-confirm that widely reported date of 1475.
GeneM
CastleLong.com …for FRC-chess960
Will this manuscript be published in a modern edition?
There are no known self portraits of Leonardo da Vinci, for sure anyway.
Greetings from the Netherlands from a (re)beginning chess player,
Eric.
The illustration is not by da Vinci but this chalk drawing by da Vinci is believed to be his only extant self-portratit
http://www.italianvisits.com/people/da_vinci/images/da-vinci_self_portrait.jpg
. I look forward to seeing the chess drawings. A celebrated modern artist who was very serious about chess was Marcel Duchamp
http://www.chessgames.com/player/marcel_duchamp.html
let me tell u he ws rly good in
selfportrait
The portrait you have is very reasonaly the true a self-portrait of DaVinci. The costume he is wearing was in fashion from the 1470s and 1480s.
This painting is wrongly attributed to Giovanni Cariani (1490-1547) who was not even yet born. Leonardo would not wait until he is an old man to make a self portrait.
Being considered a very beautiful and handsome man, DaVinci was painted often by contemporaries. His face is seen in numerous very well-known pieces of art painted by his students and contemporaries.
Unfortunately, the knowledge of the customs of the Renaissance paintings has been forgotten and needs to be relearned.