Jacobus de Cessolis

Who was Jacobus de Cessolis?

Jacobus de Cessolis was an Italian author of the most famous morality book on chess in the Middle Ages.

On the second half of the 13th century, Jacobus de Cessolis, a Dominican monk in Cessole used chess as the basis for a series of sermons on morality. They later became Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium super ludo scacchorum. The popular work was translated into many other languages and was the basis for William Caxton's The Game and Playe of the Chesse, one of the first books printed in English.