Evidence & study

BASIC EVIDENCE WHY THESE CHESSMEN ARE LEONARDO DA VINCI’S WORK!

the manuscript was written between 1496 and 1500, when Leonardo da Vinci and Luca Pacioli both lived and worked in a Duchy of Milan (Leonardo since 1482, Luca since 1496);
Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci were close friends and collaborators (in years of serving to the Duke of Milan they wrote famous De Divina Proportione);
the supremely elegant pieces, all proportioned on the basis of the Golden Ratio, which Leonardo used solely in this period, can only be his own inventions, even though all the texts in the manuscript are the autographed writings of Luca Pacioli, it is clear that the drawings of the figures were made by two different hands;
58 specific cases of game problems in the manuscript were made with extreme precision, elegance, the rapid drawing of the contours, and expert spread of colour. The hand that has copied these same figures in a sloppy and imprecise manner and filled them in with one colour with a small brush in order to explain the entire remaining group of 56 problems is most probably of Pacioli or one of his amanuenses;
the form of a Queen was adapted from a drawing of a little cypresses drawn by Leonardo many time (Folio of the rebus, Annunciazione - oil paint)
the figures of Bishop, Knight, Rook, and King can be traced to the forms and ornaments of candelabra and grotesques discovered in the "Domus Aurea";
more details on manuscript and its re-discovery can be seen on Chess pieces designed by a great master!

Mr. Franco Rocco has prepared and published a book with detailed studies on Leonardo's chess called "Leonardo & Luca Pacioli the Evidence: New Rules New Shapes in the Manuscript of Luca Pacioli about chess".

Very interesting reading with a special voucher for discounted purchase of the chess set!