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The Discart-Bonetti
Chess Match, 1863

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Francesco Discart - Forgotten Chess Genius 

Not much is known about Francesco Discart, who must now be regarded as the fourth great Modenese Master. Discart, one of the foremost Italian players and composers of the 19th century, was born in Modena in 1819, learned chess around 1840, and soon established himself as the top player in his town – this according to our best sources on Italian chess history, the Dizionario Enciclopedico degli Scacchi (by A. Chicco and G. Porreca, Milan 1971), and the Storia degli Scacchi in Italia (by A. Chicco and A. Rosino, Venice 1990).  

He took his first steps in chess influenced and encouraged by Count Valerio Salimbeni, a Modenese problemist and bibliophile who had an exceptional collection of chess books, manuscripts and compositions. Discart is soon playing matches against the Engineer Carlo Bonetti, a strong Modenese player who was nicknamed "il Biscione" (the Snake) for his sudden and unexpected attacks at the board. In match play Discart proved superior to Bonetti by only a small margin (+9 =1 -11; +11 -7; +18 -10). Other matches were played and won by Discart vs. Matilde Parisi (+3 -1) and vs. Francesco Luppi (+10 -1). In 1849 he was beaten by the Italian expatriate Ignazio Calvi (+5 =2 -10), a strong player indeed, but more famous as a composer of studies illustrating the theme of underpromotion to a Bishop or a Knight. During the Italian travels of Count Conrad Vitzthum, a famous player who later gained second place at Düsseldorf 1864 and at Cologne 1867, Discart had occasion to play against him, with good success. In 1862 Discart was invited by Johann Löwenthal, the Secretary of the Committee, to take part in the Great Chess Congress of that year in London, but he declined, probably because he was unfamiliar with the international rules of play. In 1863, in Modena, he drew a very short match of two games (+1 -1) vs. Jules Arnous de Rivière, the best French player of that period, and a frequent adversary of Paul Morphy. In that same year, he defeated once more his old friend and rival Bonetti in a new match (+9 =2 -4). In 1867, as reported by Serafino Dubois in his Memoriale, a few informal games between Discart and Dubois were won by the latter, but the Modenese was clearly upset in those days by his father's serious illness, as noted by Dubois. Afterwards Discart again had to decline invitations to play in the Chess Congresses of Paris 1867 and Baden 1870, perhaps for the same reason. Many of his games and compositions were published in 1859 in La Rivista degli Scacchi, the first Italian chess magazine, edited by Serafino Dubois and Augusto Ferrante. 

An erudite reader, and devoted collector of chess literature, Discart possessed many rare chess books and manuscripts, most notably La Pratica del Giuoco degli Scacchi, composed by Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani in 1782 but never published. All evidence suggests that the game of chess was Discart's only great love, and that, apart from his brilliant fireworks at the chessboard, he led a very quiet life, as did Anderssen. Discart was employed as Secretary to the Duke of Modena, a fact which placed him in ill-favor among the Italian patriots of those times. This circumstance probably accounts for his later move to Vienna, an important European chess center which he visited frequently throughout his life, and where he died in 1893. 

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