![[Chess] Carrera, Pietro](https://media.app.artisio.co/media/104cbde6-0d38-43cb-9e0f-bb721ef57bcf/inventory/951f8a33-810b-45e8-a501-74733c599064/3d0b1eee-85f1-4d30-bf91-4f7ccac34bd3/00001_atxZhW_original.jpeg)
[Chess] Carrera, Pietro
Il gioco de gli scacchi
Estimate: £4,000 - £6,000
Auction: 18 June 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
Militello: Giovanni de' Rossi da Trento, 1617. First edition, 4to in 8s (19.4 x 14cm), sigs. A-2R8 (register erroneously has 2S as final quire), 556 [88] pp., contemporary sprinkled calf, gilt spine, marbled edges, woodcut chessboard vignette to title-page, similar full-page illustration to p. 531, woodcut arms to verso of title-page, diagrams on pp. 34 and 35, joints cracked but remaining firm
Provenance
1) From the Schloss Tetschen library of Johann Joseph Anton, Graf von Thun-Hohenstein (1711-1788), Austrian nobleman and patron of Mozart (engraved bookplate to front pastedown, inscription and manuscript shelfmark to front free endpaper, both lightly crossed out, and large Tetschner Bibliothek ink-stamp in red to title-page).
2) Robert Blass Chess Book Collection, Christie's, 8 May 1992, lot 23 (ink stamp to front free endpaper).
Footnote
First edition of a rare and early treatise on chess, incidentally the first work printed in the Sicilian town of Militello ('primera opera stampata a Militello', Treccani), though it has been suggested that it was preceded by another work, now unprocurable: ‘In 1617, Prince Francesco Branciforti, marchese of Militello, with the assistance of Father Pietro Carrera … established at his own expense, in his palace at Militello, a private printing press run by Giovanni de’ Rossi de Trento … The press was closed in 1623 after the prince’s death: eight books were published by his press, of which the oldest is a treatise of Prince Branciforti in Spanish titled De amore honesto: it cannot be found today. Let us also note Carrera’s rare and curious book, Il gioco degli scacchi’ (Fumagalli, Lexicon Typographicum Italiae, 1905, pp. 232-3). One interesting feature of the book is Carrera’s proposal of a new 10 x 8 board (illustrated on p. 531).