Resumen de 'Allegoria del Buon Governo' nel "Libro del giocco degli scacchi" di Jacopo da Cessole
The treatrise on chess ("Libellus super ludo scaccorum") by the Dominican Jacopo da Cessole, composed around 1300, offered an allegorical interpretation of the ancient game. The geometrical hierarchy of the chessboard reflected a vision of social concord, corresponding to the theories of the common good and the ethical foundation of the "civitas" as expressed at the time by such great Dominican preachers as fra Giordano da Pisa and fra Remigio dei Girolami. The Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence houses two Tuscan manuscripts considered to be among the oldest Italian-language texts of the "Libellus", illustrated by still substantially unpublished watercoloured drawings with allegorical representations of the chess-pieces. The illustrations in MS Landau Finaly 25 are attributes to the 'Primo Maestro dei Corali del Duomo di Siena', whose authorship can be assigned to one of the principal Sienese miniature painting workshops of the period between the 1290s and the first quarter of the 1300s. The author also recognizes the work of a Florentine follower of Pacino da Bonaguida, circa 1340, in MS Magl. XIX.91.
