Göttingen manuscript

The Göttingen manuscript is authored in Latin treatise on the game of chess from the early modern period. It was probably 1500-1505. The dating is uncertain. The manuscript has a relatively small size of 14 x 10 cm. The font is assigned to the French language area in general. As a possible point of origin shall be the court of Lorraine Nancy. The similarity with the work of the Spaniard Luis Ramirez de Lucena, Repeticion: de amores: e arte. De axedres con cl Iuegos. de partido. , Salamanca 1497, leaves a copy of or authorship of the same suspect. It is in the Lower Saxony State and University Library Göttingen under the signature " Philos. 85 " kept.

Reception history

The salutation " dominatio " in the first line suggests that the Göttingen manuscript for a prince is intense speculation over his identity was made. However, the work remained unfinished, because both the recessed space for a coat of arms on the front page, as well as three vorlinierte, blank pages at the end of the book, two of which are provided with an empty diagram, were not used. The inscription 'J. B. Hautin ', the front of the book could refer to the name of a former owner before the manuscript passed into the possession of Frederick Boerner from Wolfenbüttel, which they in September 1752 with a dedication gave ( the front of the book ) of the Göttingen University Library, where it is kept to this day. In 1999, the work entitled "On the 500 year old Göttingen manuscript Philos.85 " in the Festschrift was "75 Years of Lower Saxony Chess Association ", Hanover in 1999, first published.

Importance

The Göttingen manuscript is in addition to the aforementioned work Lucena, Francesc Vicents Libre dels yoke partits dels chess en nombre as 100 ordenat e compost, Valencia in 1495, as well as the Catalan Chess poem Scachs d' amor, written by chess and literary circle around Bernat Fenollar, Franci de Castellví and Narcis Vinyoles 1470-1490, one of the oldest documents of the modern chess, which sets a new pace of queen and bishop to reason. The castling move has been carried out in two to three trains in the form of the so-called king jump.

Content

The Göttingen manuscript contains 12 game starts being played some still do, as well as 30 chess compositions. There are also presented typical opening traps. The description of the trains will be on fairly complicated way, since the presently used algebraic notation was not yet known. Here is an example of the first page, in the translation by H. Schomaeker:

The 12 game beginnings of the Göttingen manuscript

Example of an opening trap in the second game

Three examples of chess compositions

White plays:

Solutions: