Gioachino Greco


Gioachino Greco, surnamed Cusentino and more frequently il Calabrese, was an Italian chess player and writer. He recorded some of the earliest chess games known in their entirety. His games, which never indicated players, were quite possibly constructs, but served as examples of brilliant combinations.
Greco was very likely the strongest player of his time, having played the best players of Rome, Paris, London, and Madrid. Greco's writing was in the form of manuscripts for his patrons, in which he outlined the rules of chess, gave playing advice, and presented instructive games. These manuscripts were later published to a wide audience and became massively influential after his death.

Name

The name "Greco" is often assumed to be indicative of a Greek heritage. Indeed, Calabria, the region in which Greco was born, has a long history of Greek immigration and use of Greek as the vernacular. One prominent writer, Willard Fiske, even suggests that Greco was born in Morea, Greece, before moving to Calabria. However, Fiske gives no specific evidence for this claim; neither do other writers claiming that in this case "Greco" signified "Greek". The origin of "Greco" is therefore largely speculative.
Greco's other names have more concrete origins. "Cusentino" is known from the Corsini manuscript, and means that he was born near Cosenza. il Calabrese, literally "the Calabrian", meant that Greco was from the Calabria region.

Life

Little is known about the life of Greco. Our most reliable information about his life comes from his manuscripts. He was born around 1600 in Celico, Italy. Greco apparently showed an early aptitude for chess, leaving home uneducated and at a young age to make a living over the board. By 1620 Greco had become experienced enough to write his earliest dated manuscript, Trattato Del Nobilissimo Gioco De Scacchi..., copies of which were given to his patrons in Rome.
Greco is said to have traveled to Paris, although this visit is conspicuously unattested by existing manuscripts. There he continued to find great success over the board. His victories over the strongest French players – among them the Duc de Nemours, M. Arnault le Carabin, and M. Chaumont de la Salle – granted him both fame and riches. By 1622 Greco was travelling to England with a large sum of money; in Paris he had gained the equivalent of 5,000 crowns.
Greco was apparently waylaid during this journey, however, resulting in the loss of his newfound wealth. Undeterred, he continued to London and played the English chess elite. During his stay in London Greco began recording entire chess games rather than single instructive positions, as had been the usual manner.
Greco returned to Paris in 1624 and began rewriting his collection of manuscripts. It is unclear whether he actually played these games – to modern eyes, his opponents' play seems dubious at best. The games' provenance is perhaps inessential; having composed them, Greco was “certainly capable of playing them” on a board.
Not one to remain in one place for long, Greco left Paris for the court of Philip IV in Spain. Greco managed to defeat all his opponents there, as well. By this point Greco had shown himself to be the greatest player in Europe with victories over the champions of Rome, Paris, London, and Madrid.
Having conquered the Old World, Greco traveled to the New. Greco is said to have succumbed to disease in the West Indies soon after arriving. The exact date of his death is unknown, but most sources have him dead by 1634. His chess earnings were given to the Jesuits.

Legacy

Greco was a remarkable chess player who inhabited the era between Ruy López de Segura and François-André Danican Philidor. At that early date, no great corpus of chess knowledge had yet been amassed. It is for this reason that Greco's games should be understood as those of a brilliant inventor and pioneer rather than as guides to sound play. They are also valuable examples of the Italian Romantic school of chess, in which development and material are eschewed in favor of aggressive attacks on the opponent's king. Greco paved the way for many of the attacking legends of the Romantic era, such as Philidor, Adolf Anderssen, and Paul Morphy.
Mikhail Botvinnik considered Greco to be the first professional chess player. Other chess writers from the early period of modern chess had professional occupations, except Paolo Boi, who was wealthy through inheritance, and Giulio Cesare Polerio, who was a servant to a wealthy family. Greco, however, relied on chess to make a living.
Greco's innovation to record entire games is perhaps his greatest legacy. Although his manuscripts were initially kept privately by his patrons, they would eventually become public; in 1656, years after his death, one of Greco's now-lost manuscripts was adapted as The Royall Game of Chesse-Play by Francis Beale in London. Beale's book--and others like it--helped Greco's work reach a much larger audience than had his predecessors'. In particular, Le Jeu Des Eschets, published in Paris 1669 became the principal source for the later English editions by William Lewis and Louis Hoffmann.
Games were not described in the now-familiar algebraic notation; rather, the movement of each piece was given in descriptive notation, like so:
The Fooles Mate.
Black Kings Bishops pawne one house.
White Kings pawne one house.
Black kings knights pawne two houses
White Queen gives Mate at the contrary kings Rookes fourth house
in which "house" refers to a square on the chessboard.
In addition to the games listed in his manuals, Greco often gave general advice to his readers and an overview of the rules of chess. These range from the familiar to the bizarre. Greco also describes the premodern necessity of announcing check to one's opponent and the disgrace of what he calls a "blind Mate" – a checkmate given but not noticed.
The "Lawes of Chesse" were also not entirely standardized in Greco's time; for that reason, the rules as published by Beale would have been meant for a specific population. For example, Greco specifies that when castling in France, "the Rook... goeth into the Kings house". In other countries the rules for castling were different. Modern castling, which Greco also describes, is sometimes called "alla Calabrese" in Greco's honor.

Openings Named for Greco

As one of the players during the age of the Italian Romantic style, Greco studied the Italian game, among other openings. His games are regarded as classics of early chess literature and are sometimes still taught to beginners. Greco himself presented his games as between "White" and "Black"; the modern convention is to name the participants Greco and, for the Latin nomen nescio.
Among his games were the first smothered mate:
and another that was continued into the endgame:

Compositions

Although Greco is known for recording entire games, he also included a number of chess problems in his manuscripts. Many of these were either copied directly, or adapted with modifications, from the works of previous authors.
This puzzle uses the theme of the wrong rook pawn, and is probably an original composition by Greco:
And here is one inspired by an earlier composition by Salvio:

Quotes about Greco

What follows is a list of manuscripts written by Greco, as given by Murray. There is a large amount of overlap among the contents of many of the works; many also have identical titles. Efforts to list and date Greco's manuscripts have been made by Antonius van der Linde, J. A. Leon, Murray, J. G. White, Alessandro Sanvito, and Peter J. Monté.
All Greco's manuscripts had Italian text, though some were given English titles. The title pages or first pages were the work of calligraphers, while the text was in Greco's own hand. Furthermore, some works survive only as later copies or translations, and therefore only their translated titles are known.
  1. Trattato del Gioco de Scacchi de Gioachino Greco Cusentino. Diuiso in Sbaratti & Partiti.
  2. Trattato del nobilissimo Gioco de Scacchi, il quale è rutratto di Guerra & di Ragion di Stato. Diuiso in Sbaratti, Partitti, & Gambetti, Giochi moderni, Con bellissimi Tratti occuli tutti diuersi. Di Gioacchino Greco Calabrese, L'Anno MDCXX.
  3. Untitled Manuscript
  4. Libretto di giochare a schachi composto da giochimo greco Calabrese di la tera di celico. Gioachino Greco practtica in Casa del Cardinal Saucelli, et Monsr. Boncompagno.
  5. Trattato del nobilissimo Gioco de Scacchi, il quale è rutratto di Guerra & di Ragion di Stato. Diuiso in Sbaratti, Partitti, & Gambetti, Giochi moderni, Con bellissimi Tratti occuli tutti diuersi. Di Gioacchino Greco Calabrese, L'Anno MDCXXI.
  6. The Book of The ordinary games at Chestes. Composed by Joachnio Greco an Italian, Borne in Calabria: written for Nicholas Mountstephen dwellinge at Ludgate in London: Anno Domini 1623
  7. The Book of The ordinary games at Chestes. Composed by Joachnio Greco an Italian, Borne in Calabria
  8. The Book of The ordinary games at Chestes. Composed by Joachnio Greco an Italian, Borne in Calabria
  9. The Book of The ordinary games at Chestes. Composed by Joachnio Greco an Italian, Borne in Calabria: written for Nicholas Mountstephen dwellinge at Ludgate in Longon: Mount-Stephen 1623
  10. Trattato sopra la nobilta del Gioco di Scacchi dore in esso contiene en vero ritratto di Guerra et governo di stato diriso in sharatti et partiti et gambetti et giochi orinarii con tratti diversi belissimi, Composto per Gioacchino Greco Italiano Calavrese.
  11. Untitled Manuscript
  12. Trattato sopra la nobilta del Gioco di Scacchi dore in esso contiene en vero ritratto di Guerra et governo di stato diriso in sharatti et partiti et gambetti et giochi orinarii con tratti diversi belissimi, Composto per Gioacchino Greco Italiano Calavrese.
  13. Trattato del Nobilissimo et Militare Essercitio de Scacchi nel quale si contrengono molti bellissimi tratti et la vera Scienza di esso giocco. Somposto da Gioachino Greco Calabrese.
  14. Trattato del Nobilissimo et Militare Essercitio de Scacchi nel quale si contrengono molti bellissimi tratti et la vera Scienza di esso giocco. Sompoosto da Gioachino Greco Calabrese.
  15. Trattato del Nobilissimo et Militare Essercitio de Scacchi nel quale si contrengono molti bellissimi tratti et la vera Scienza di esso giocco. Sompoosto da Gioachino Greco Calabrese.
  16. Il nobillissimo Gioco delli Scacchi.
  17. Le Ieu des Eschecs de Ioachim Grez Calabrois.
  18. Primo mode de Giuoco de partito composto per Gioachino Greco Calabrese