Gioachino Greco, known as Il Calabrese, made his living from chess and prepared manuscripts for patrons during the 1620s. His collections contain complete illustrative games, with sacrifices, king hunts and mating patterns that later teachers repeatedly used. The games are generally understood as compositions, and some draw on earlier authors. Greco's contribution was to develop and collect these examples in a form that generations of players could study.
The manuscripts
Greco's manuscripts combined rules, openings and illustrative games. J. A. Leon's bibliography in The Games of Greco (1900) lists a manuscript dated Rome, February 12, 1620. Another was dedicated to Henry II, Duke of Lorraine, on July 5, 1621; Guillaume Polidore Ancel translated that manuscript into French at Nancy in 1622. Leon also lists Italian manuscripts with English title pages, and copies later held in Paris. The versions differ in language, arrangement and contents.
Louis Hoffmann, the editor of that volume, described the collection as imaginary games and noted that no records of Greco's actual contests remained. The manuscripts name the two sides White and Black; the convention of listing Greco against an unnamed opponent came later. Earlier authors also supplied material: William Lewis's 1819 edition explicitly credits two of its games to Damiano. The teaching examples include inherited ideas as well as Greco's own work.
A travelling player
Greco relied on chess for his living, through play and the manuscripts he prepared for patrons. Mikhail Botvinnik later called him the first professional chess player.
Hoffmann's introduction recounts Greco's visits to France, England and Spain. It says he was credited with winning 5,000 crowns in Paris, then robbed after reaching England in 1622. Hoffmann also acknowledges that no record of his English chess performances survives.
“Greco has been justly celebrated as a first-rate player, and his work is considered by good judges as exhibiting great skill and ingenuity, and abounding with brilliant and instructive situations.”
“For brilliant models of attack against incorrect play the games of Greco are of great value to the student.”
What he taught the game
His Italian Trattato also discussed how to behave at the board. Greco urged players to stay bold and frighten their opponents with words, even in worse positions. After a loss, he advised blaming distraction and remaining cheerful to confuse the opponent. Alongside that bravado, he told players to think at least two or three moves ahead.
Greco's examples include the bishop sacrifice on h7 followed by a knight check on g5, a smothered mate with a queen sacrifice, and traps against a queen that captures a corner rook. His name is attached to the counter-gambit 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5. These names do not establish that he invented every pattern: Hoffmann identifies an earlier smothered mate in Damiano and traces the counter-gambit to Polerio's account of Leonardo da Cutri.
In Garry Kasparov on My Great Predecessors, Part I, Kasparov uses Greco to introduce the Italian School's attacks on the king. He points out both poor defence and valuable analysis, including Greco's rook sacrifice in the Italian Game. The combinations remain useful examples when studied together with the defender's better alternatives.
Editors and readers
Francis Beale's English edition appeared as The Royall Game of Chesse-Play in 1656, after Greco's death. Beale dedicated it to the Earl of Lindsey. Its engraved frontispiece depicts Charles I; no portrait of Greco is known. The book describes the moves in words, using “house” for a square, and expressly calls its later group of gambits compositions by Greco.
In Gioachino Greco on the Game of Chess (1819), William Lewis explained how he grouped similar openings, treated many examples as variations of an earlier game, and supplied corrections in the notes. He admired Greco's attacking skill but warned that some attacks worked only because the defender made a worse mistake. The 1833 edition retained this preface and commentary. Hoffmann returned the collection to English readers in 1900, with a new arrangement and Leon's bibliography.
The end
The later accounts place Greco's final journey in the West Indies and say that his money went to the Jesuits. Hoffmann notes that Salvio, writing in 1634, already described him as dead. His precise death year and age are not known. The collection continued to appear in translations and new editions long after him.
Legacy
Greco's collections made attacking ideas available through complete examples that could be copied, translated and corrected. Later editors preserved his combinations while identifying earlier sources and improving the defence. That combination of imaginative examples and critical study explains the work's continuing place in chess teaching. His are the earliest games in this archive.
Books
Books Gioachino Greco wrote, co-wrote, edited, or contributed to. Translations and reprints are grouped under the same work.