Jerome Gambit: Giovanni Tonetti

 

Readers familiar with the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) might understandably mistake the above photograph as one of an aging British chess player, Joseph Henry Blackburne, whose notorious treatment of an Amateur's Jerome Gambit is probably the best known game with that line.

However, it is Giovanni Tonetti, of Italy, mentioned in yesterday's blog post "Jerome Gambit: How We Got Here", whom we see above.

The picture headlines the blog post "Giovanni Tonetti, the Nestor of the Italian chess players" by Riccardo Moneta - a far more extensive coverage of the man than I originally gave.

Since the earliest Jerome Gambit game that I have uncovered was played by Tonetti in 1863 (when Jerome was about 30 years old, but still about a decade before the Dubuque Chess Journal published Jerome's analysis of the opening), it is relevant to learn more about this early chess argonaut. Especially since Tonetti has nearly been forgotten, as Moneta laments

Giovanni Tonetti, President of the Roman Chess Academy and co-founder (Turin, 1898) of the Italian Chess Union (forerunner of the FSI) together with the secretary of the Academy Prof. Augusto Guglielmetti, would deserve a nice little book dedicated to him, more detailed than these a few lines that I prepared today.

Instead Tonetti was unfortunately almost forgotten. Among the first responsible for the oblivion into which our Nestor fell there is what is perhaps the best known Italian historical text, or the " History of chess in Italy” by Chicco and Rosino, which I do not think has dedicated a single line among his more than 600 pages, apart from the ranking of that first Italian tournament I mentioned above.

I suspect that Alonzo Wheeler Jerome would be sympathetic. As early as 1884, the American Supplement to the "Synopsis," containing American Inventions In the Chess Openings Together With Fresh Analysis in the Openings Since 1882; also a list of Chess Clubs in the United States and Canada, edited by J.W. Miller, covered the Jerome Gambit, noting

We give the fullest analysis of this American invention that has yet been in print. The author is Mr. S. A. Charles, Cincinnati, O.

In any event, I have emailed Riccardo Moneta and asked him if he knows of other Tonetti games with the gambit. I will let you know about his reply.