Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani

Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani (9 November 1719 – 15 July 1796) was an 18th-century Italian law professor, priest, chess player, composer and theoretician. He is best known today for his chess writing.

Ponziani was born in Modena in 1719. In 1742 he graduated in law at the University of San Carlo and was admitted to the College of Advocates in 1745. He was Professor of Civil Law at the University of Modena from 1742 to 1772 when he retired taking a pension and the title of honorary professor. In 1764 Ponziani took orders as a priest and in 1766 he became a canon in the Modena Cathedral. He became Vicar General in 1784, received the title of Protonotary Apostolic, and was made Vicar Capitular in 1785. Ponziani died in Modena and is buried in the Modena Cathedral.

Ponziani was friends with fellow Modenese chess players and writers Ercole del Rio and Giambattista Lolli, and collectively the trio are known as the Modenese Masters. In 1769 Ponziani published the first edition of Il giuoco incomparabile degli scacchi (The Incomparable Game of Chess). As Ponziani did not include his name in the work (Opera d'Autore Modenese) it was identified to the Anonymous Modenese. The second edition in 1782 was much improved and laid out the principles of the Italian school of chess as exemplified by 17th-century Italian masters such as Gioachino Greco. Although Ponziani identified himself in the second edition, the 1820 translation by English naval officer J. B. Smith using the pen name J. S. Bingham, The Incomparable Game of Chess, attributed the work to del Rio.

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