Jerome Gambit: Early Sources

 

From time to time I look for games or resources that might have insprired Alonzo Wheeler Jerome's interest in the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) 

Recently I have been going through Peter J. Monte's The Classical Era of Modern Chess (2014) which includes his attempt, in part, to "record all openings that were written down between 1497 (Lucena) and 1597 (Gianutio)". Eventually he extended this examination further, "to a period embracing approximately 150 years of the modern European game."

I hoped, in part, to find some written Italian sources that would lead to Tonetti's gambit game of 1863 which predated Jerome's analysis that came a decade later. (Relevant to this is a discussion about the rule changes that came about during that period - see Yury V. Bukayev's "Who is the 1st inventor of JG in chess – A.Jerome or G.Tonetti?    The new approach [Part1]")

I was most successful in finding the roots of what I have referred to as the Abrahams Jerome Gambit, 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Bxf7+ - called such due to the fact that Gerald Abrahams referred to the line, arising out of the Bishop's Opening, as the Jerome Gambit in his The Chess Mind (1951) and The Pan Book of Chess (1965).

Looking at Giulio Cesare Polerio's Ordini Manuscript (1594) - Ordini di giuochi degli scacchi in diversi modi, cosi di mano, come sottomano, cio e in offenza, e dife[n]za co[n] altri bellissimi partiti, sono di Guilio Cesare Polerio alias l'Apruzzese. Giocandosi del Pari - Monte writes

The Bishop's Opening: In the Classical Variation (2...Bc5) the new 3.Bxf7+ etc. is introduced...

In Polerio's Doazan Manuscript he goes further

The Sortie 3.Bxf7+ Kxf7 4.Qh5+ etc. (Ordini 28) is extensively elaborated in D13 and D34.

Looks familiar, yes?

Perhaps I should now refer to 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Bxf7+ as the Polerio Gambit. One problem might be that there is already a Polerio Gambit in the King's Gambit (although it is also referred to as the Muzio Gambit): 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3. f3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.0-0

I continue to examine The Classical Era of Modern Chess with hopes to find proto-Jerome Gambit lines.