Author: Johannes Meursius (van Meurs) (1579 -1639) from the library of David DeLucia
Year: 1625
Publisher: Elzevir
Place: Leiden
Description:
70 pages, 5 leaves index, 16 leaves, 248 pages. Duodecimo (6 1/4" x 4") bound in parchment with label to spine in gilt lettering. From the library of David DeLucia (van der Linde I, 40 f. (edition of 1622). Schmid p. 252 f. Kieler Schachkatalog 2135)
In the second part of the edition, the work of Daniel Souteri, there are references to chess on pages 13 - 15, 21 - 27 and 227.
Meursius was born Johannes van Meurs at Loosduinen, near The Hague. In 1610 he was appointed professor of Greek and history at Leiden, and in the following year historiographer to the States-General of the Netherlands. He welcomed the offer (1625) of Christian IV of Denmark to become professor of history and politics at Soro, in Zealand, combined with the office of historiographer royal, in which role he produced a Latin history of Denmark (1630–38), Historia Danica.
David DeLucia's chess library contains 7,000 to 8,000 chess books, a similar number of autographs (letters, score sheets, manuscripts), and about 1,000 items of "ephemera". DeLucia's library contains such items as "a 15th-century Lucena manuscript, score-sheets ranging from Fischer's Game of the Century against Donald Byrne to all the games of the 1927 New York tournament, eight letters by Morphy, over a hundred Lasker manuscripts, Capablanca's gold pocket watch, [and] the contract of the 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort world championship match".
Condition:
DeLucia's book plate to front pastedown. Occasional handwritten notes. A few pages with defects. Cover more dusty and slightly stained else very good.
SOLD 2025