Experts say the Renaissance genius, whose interests included painting, mathematics, music, engineering, anatomy and botany, may have illustrated the puzzles in a long-lost chess treatise recently recovered in the library of an aristocratic family in northern Italy. The manuscript was penned around 1500 by Luca Pacioli, a mathematician and friend of Leonardo, and some experts believe the artist may have drawn the elegant pieces that illustrate the chess puzzles discussed in the treatise. The treatise, “De Ludo Schaccorum” — Latin for “Of the Game of Chess” — includes more than 100 chess problems that challenge the player to reach checkmate in a certain number of moves. Rocco said the futuristic style of the chess pieces is in sharp contrast with the way other pieces were represented at the time. read more

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