modern translarions in either English or Italian. There
are, however, modern critical editions of Jean Ferron’s
French translation of 1347 (the best of the medieval
French translations), and of the Middle Scots transla-
tion of c. 1515.
Further Reading
Editions
Burt, Marie Anita. “Jacobus de Cessolis: Libellus de moribus
hominum et offi ciis nobilium ac popularium super ludo sca-
chorum.” Dissertation, University of Texas, Austin, 1957.
Jacobus de Cessolis. Libellus de ludo scachorum, ed. Ernst Köpke.
Mittheilungen aus den Handschriften der Ritter-Akademie
zu Brandenburg a. H., 2. Brandenburg a. d. Havel: G. Mat-
thes, 1879.
Das Schachbuch des Jacobus de Cessolis: Codex Palatinus Lati-
nus 961, 2 vols. Belser Faksimile Editionen aus der Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, 74. Zürich: Belser Verlag, 1988.
Vetter, Ferdinand, ed. Das Schachzabelbuch Kunrats von Am-
menhausen, Mönchs, und Leutpriesters zu Stein am Rhein,
nebst den Schachbüchern des Jakob von Cessole und des
Jakob Mannel. Frauenfeld: Huber, 1892.
Translations
Caxton, William. The Game and Play of Chesse (1474), intro.
N. F. Blake. London: Scolar, 1976.
Caxton’s Game and Playe of the Cheese, 1474: A Verbatim Re-
print of the First Edition with an Introduction by William E.
A. Axon. London: Elliot Stock, 1883.
The Game of the Cheese by William Caxton: Reproduction in
Facsimile with Remarks by Vincent Figgins. London: John
Russell Smith, 1860.
Volgarizzamento del libro de’ costumi e degli offi zii de’ nobili
sopra il giuoco degli scacchi di frate Jacopo da Cessole:
Tratto nuovamente da un codice Magliabechiano, ed. Pietro
Marocco. Milan: Dalla Tipografi a del Dott. Giulio Ferrario,
1829.
Critical Studies
Buuren, Catherine van, ed. The Buke of the Chess: Edited from
the Asloan Manuscript (NLS MS 16500). Edinburgh: Scottish
Text Society, 1997.
Collet, Alain, ed. Le Jeu des Eschaz Moralisé: Traduction de Jean
Ferron (1347). Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999.
Di Lorenzo, Robert D. “The Collection Form and the Art of
Memory in the Libellus super Ludo Scaccorum of Jacobus de
Cessolis.” Mediaeval Studies, 35, 1973, pp. 205–221.
Kaeppeli, Thomas, O.P. “Pour la biographie de Jacques de
Cessole.” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 30, 1960, pp.
149–162.
Mann, Jill. Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1973. Murray, Harold James R.
A History of Chess. Oxford: Clarendon, 1913, pp. 537–549.
(Reprints, 1961, 1987.)
Steven Grossvogel
JACOPONE DA TODI
(c. 1230 or 1236–1306)
The Franciscan friar and mystic Jacopone da Todi (Jaco-
bus de Benedictis, Jacopus de Tuderto, Jacopo de’ Bene-
detti, Giacopone de’ Benedetti) is considered by some to
be Italy’s greatest poet before Dante. The principal type
of verse that Jacopone used is the lauda, a nonliturgical
song of praise in vernacular ballad form, although some
works in Latin are also attributed to him.
Details about Jacopone’s life before his religious
conversion are sketchy, but it is generally accepted that
he was born (as his name implies) in Todi, Umbria, to
a family of the lesser nobility. He received an education
typical of his time and social class (he may have studied
at the University of Bologna) and then is believed to
have practiced the profession of notary in Todi and, in
his mid-thirties, to have married Vanna di Bernardino di
Guidone, of the counts of Collemedio (or Coldimezzo).
According to early vitae (lives) of Jacopone, Vanna’s
accidental death at a party devastated him, provoked a
profound psychological crisis, and led to his religious
conversion in 1268. The precipitating factor in this rapid
chain of events appears to have been his discovery that
Vanna, like many others during this tumultuous period
of Italian history, had practiced self-mortifi cation as a
form of religious penance—in her case, by wearing a
hairshirt under her beautiful and costly outer garb. To the
consternation of his family and the disbelief of his fel-
low citizens, Jacopo divested himself of all his worldly
goods and habits and became a bezocone, or mendicant
Franciscan tertiary (Laude, ed. Mancini, 1974, 151). For
the next ten years, he traveled the highways of Umbria,
singing God’s praise and preaching salvation, not in the
Latin of the church but in the language of the people,
as was the custom of the Franciscans. In 1278, on his
second request, he was fi nally admitted to the order of
Friars Minor (i.e., the Franciscan order; Casolini 1966,
620). He thus became Fra Jacopone—a name that can
be translated as Big Jim or Big Jake.
In the years following the death of Saint Francis
(1226), the Franciscans split into two opposing camps.
The Spirituals believed in the strict interpretation of
Francis’s rule, which called for complete poverty; the
Community, sometimes referred to as the Conventuals,
supported a more relaxed interpretation that permitted
ownership of property and other material comforts. Ja-
copone sided with the more extreme Spirituals and, as
a consequence, found himself locked in the bitter and
sometimes dangerous struggle between the two factions.
When Boniface VIII became pope, Jacopone allied
himself with the Colonna family, Boniface’s enemies.
Jacopone’s open and virulent opposition to the powerful
new pope earned him excommunication and fi ve years
of solitary confi nement.
While he was in prison, Jacopone wrote many laude.
In one of them—Que farai, fra Iacovone? (“What will
you do, Brother Jacopone?” number 55 in Ageno’s
edition, 53 in Mancini’s)—he comments with mordant
irony on the dire conditions of his imprisonment. We
know from two laude—O papa Bonifazio/io porto elJACOPONE DA TODI