【BBCより、以下転載】イタリアで個人の書庫から発見された写本の中に見つかったチェスをしている絵が、レオナルド・ダ・ヴィンチによるものではないかと研究者が言ってるそうです。
Researchers believe early illustrations of how to play the game of chess, found in a long-lost Italian manuscript, may have been drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.
Da Vinci was a close friend of Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli, who wrote the manuscript.
Pacioli wrote the book - a collection of puzzles called "De ludo scacchorum" found in a private library last year - around the year 1500, experts say.
The puzzles are very similar to those found in daily newspapers today.
So far, three pages of the manuscript have been published, showing carefully drawn diagrams, each representing a possible chess scenario, to which Pacioli offered his solutions - checkmate in a set number of moves.
It was not the first of its kind, but one of the most striking things about it, aside from the practical demonstrations of the game, is the novelty and beauty of its illustrations.
The king, queen, bishop and knight are all represented by elegant and distinctive symbols, coloured in black and red ink; so finely drawn that it soon became clear these must be the hand of another artist.
Independent assessment
The researchers say they are confident these are the drawings of Leonardo and they have asked experts in the United States to make a second, independent assessment.
The manuscript was discovered last year among thousands of volumes in a private library in Gorizzia, north-east Italy.
Pacioli and Leonardo were working and collaborating on each other's works around the year 1500.
Leonardo is thought to have understood chess and maybe he even played it.
He made a reference to a technical term from the game in one of his many manuscripts.
This is thought to be the only surviving copy of the De ludo scacchorum.
And if it does indeed contain drawings by the hand of Leonardo, then of course, it will be priceless.
写本には、日本で言うなら詰め将棋みたいなのが書かれているみたい。
実際に、ダ・ヴィンチはその写本を書いたフランシスコ会の修道士や数学者とも親密な友人だったらしいし、約1500年頃一緒に仕事をしたりしていたそうです。
でもって、写本自体はアメリカの専門家に独立した評価を依頼しているようです。
こうやってみると、まだまだ出てくるもんですね。既に500年も前の人物に関することなのに・・・。まあ、それだけ世界中から注目されている人物であるわけでしょうけど、本物かどうか分かりませんが、個人的には楽しみにして期待したいところです。
もっとも、もう数年に渡って似たようなニュースをうちのブログだけでも相当数採り上げてますけれど・・・さてさて、その信憑性やいかに？ってところですね（笑顔）。
