Ignazio Calvi
Encyclopedia
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
and chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
player.
After taking part to a popular insurrection in Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
and participating to a military campaign of the Savoia
Savoia
Savoia may refer to:-*Savoy*Savoie*House of Savoy, a royal house of Italy until 1946.*Savoia-Marchetti, an Italian aircraft manufacturer.*Savoia Castle, a castle near Prague, Czech Republic....
army, he was forced to expatriate. He moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1834, remaining there for 14 years. In the famous Café de la Régence
Café de la Régence
The Café de la Régence in Paris was an important European centre of chess in the 18th and 19th centuries. All important chess masters of the time played there.The Café' masters include, but are not limited to:* Paul Morphy...
he played many games with the foremost French players, being recognized as a strong master
Chess master
A chess master is a chess player of such skill that he/she can usually beat chess experts, who themselves typically prevail against most amateurs. Among chess players, the term is often abbreviated to master, the meaning being clear from context....
. In 1845 he drew a match with Lionel Kieseritzky
Lionel Kieseritzky
Lionel Adalbert Bagration Felix Kieseritzky was a 19th-century chess master, famous primarily for a game he lost against Adolf Anderssen, which because of its brilliance was named "The Immortal Game".-Early life:...
(+7 –7 =1).
He contributed many articles to the chess review Le Palaméde, among them a Cours d'échecs, which was later translated into English on the Chess Player's Chronicle. The articles included many diagrams with exercises and endgame studies
Endgame study
An endgame study, or just study, is a composed chess position—that is, one that has been made up rather than one from an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find a way for one side to win or draw, as stipulated, against any moves the other side...
, most of them composed by himself. He is regarded as the first composer to treat with some depth the theme of underpromotion.
In 1848 he returned to Italy and enlisted in the Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
army, taking part in many military campaigns for the cause of Italian unification
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
. In December 1849 he played a series of matches in Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
against the strongest local players, winning most of them: Francesco Discart (+10 –5 =2), Carlo Bonetti (+8 –8 = 4), Francesco Luppi (+4 -0 =0), Marchisio (+2 -0 =0).
In 1859 he was appointed to command the Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
stronghold of the Piedmont army and afterwards he was sent to Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
as an aid to the army general Zucchi. In August of the same year he was named a deputy-member of the newly formed Modena government. He was appointed a representative of the Modena government at first in Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
and then in Ferrara
Ferrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
. After serving as an officer in the lawcourt of Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, he was discharged from the army with the rank of major. He settled in Finale Modenese (now Finale Emilia), where he worked as a pharmacist and was appointed to many public offices.
An endgame study by Ignazio Calvi
This chess endgame studyEndgame study
An endgame study, or just study, is a composed chess position—that is, one that has been made up rather than one from an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find a way for one side to win or draw, as stipulated, against any moves the other side...
is regarded as one of the first using the theme of underpromotion
Promotion (chess)
Promotion is a chess rule describing the transformation of a pawn that reaches its eighth rank into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same color . The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square and is part of the move. Promotion is not limited to pieces that have...
. The original solution was not entirely correct and the Dutch composer De Freijter slightly modified the study, adding the initial promotion to Knight. The main theme remained however unchanged.
Solution: