Classic Bishop Sacrifice Before Greco

In Chess Gems: 1,000 Combinations You Should Know (2007), Igor Sukhin presents this position which he credits to an 1594 manuscript produced by Giulio Cesare Polerio.

White to move

Polerio's Ordini MS is dated 1594 in the dedication to an unnamed lord. In "Part II. Openings and Games of the Classical Era of Modern Chess" of The Classical Era of Modern Chess (2014), Peter J. Monté presents a game opening from this MS that concludes with the classic bishop sacrifice (519), which sometimes is called Greco's Sacrifice or the Greek Gift.

Polerio,G.C.
Ordini MS 1594

1.e4 e6 2.d4 Bb4+ 3.c3 Ba5 4.f4

Rapid advance of the c- and f-pawns was advised by Polerio against closed positions "gioco stretto" (see Monté, 236).

4...Nf6 5.Bd3 O-O 6.Nf3 d5 7.e5 Ne8

White to move

8.Bxh7+

9.Ng5 and Qh5 will follow.

This position differs in a few particulars from the one presented by Sukhin. The line that leads to Sukhin's position appears in the Doazan MS. I discussed this game and the Doazan MS at the end of March in "Classic Bishop Sacrifice: Early History". As noted there, the manuscript is of uncertain authorship and date. Monté includes it in the grouping he labels the Polerio-complex. Its contents have much in common with other MSS more clearly the work of Polerio.

Two earlier Polerio MSS offer another variation leading to the classic bishop sacrifice. The first was acquired by J.A. Leon, who presented its contents in British Chess Magazine (August 1894) and then later that year in a small book, Forty-Six Games of Chess by Giulio Cesare Polerio. Based on the handwriting, Monté believes, it is "the work of an anonymous writer who could copy Polerio's notes at leisure" (222). This Leon MS may have preceded one presented to Giacomo Buoncompagno, named Boncompagno MS No. 2 by Monté. The dedication addresses Giacomo as the Duke of Sora, a title he assumed 12 March 1580. In October 1583 acquired an additional title not in the dedication, suggesting the MS must have been presented sometime 1580-1583.

This version appears to be the earliest known example of the classic bishop sacrifice. It is the work of Polerio a full decade prior to the date given by Sukhin.

Polerio,G.C.
Leon MS 1583

1.e4 e6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Bd3 Bb4+ 4.c3 Ba5 5.Nf3 O-O 6.e5 Nd5

White to move

7.Bxh7+

Before Greco

As I mentioned in my article in March, there have been those who credited nineteenth century chess masters with what many today call Greco's Sacrifice. Greco certainly deserves credit for demonstrating the conduct of the game all the way to the end, but the sacrifice itself was known earlier. There are at least four versions that precede Greco.

1) Polerio's earliest, appearing in the Leon and Boncompagno-2 MSS from the early 1580s.

2) Polerio's second, appearing in the Ordini MS, 1594
3) The Doazan MS version, possibly connected to Polerio. Probably early seventeenth century.
4) Salvio's version, published in Trattato dell' Inventione et Arte Liberale del Gioco Degli Scacchi (1604).

Greco may have seen Polerio's early version, but Salvio's version is the one that he developed in his own manuscripts.