Chess classic with Jacob Sarratt and William Lewis provenance

Selenus, Gustavus (i.e., August II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg). Das Schach- oder König-Spiel. [...] In vier unterschiedene Bücher, mit besonderm fleiß, gründ- und ordentlich abgefasset. Auch mit dienlichen Kupfer-Stichen gezieret [...] Diesem ist zu ende, angefüget, ein sehr altes Spiel, genandt, Rythmo-Machia.

€ 18.000,00

First edition, second issue, of the first German instruction book for chess players, a title reissue of the 1616 printing with only the date on the general title altered.

The book adapts and reorganises earlier continental material, including an Italian tradition ultimately dependent on Ruy López, while preserving valuable evidence for the laws and practices of chess current in the German lands. Duke Augustus devotes notable attention to Courier chess, the medieval variant long popular in German-speaking regions, and cites its survival at Ströbeck near Halberstadt alongside other local forms of the game. The fifth and final part describes the number-game Rithmomachy, translated (as stated on its separate title) from Francesco Barozzi’s Venetian treatise of 1572, and positioned here as a learned adjunct to the art of play.

The illustrative programme is unusually rich for the genre, culminating in the folding engraved plate of the young Duke winning at chess: a discreet emblem of princely erudition and the bookish court culture that also produced the great Wolfenbüttel library.