Giulio Cesare Polerio
Italian chess player
Giulio Cesare Polerio (c. 1555 – c. 1610; reconstruction of places and dates by Adriano Chicco) was an Italian chess theoretician and player.
Name affixes used for him are l'Apruzzese, Giu[o]lio Cesare da Lanciano (Salvio/Walker), and Lancianese, because he was born in Lanciano, a town in the province of Chieti of the region Abruzzo of Italy. He died in Rome.
Chess playing
The first published mention of Polerio is from 1634 in Il Puttino by Alessandro Salvio. It recounts an event that must have occurred around 1575. "Il Puttino, altramente detto il Cavaliere errante" is a nickname used by Alessandro Salvio for Giovanni Leonardo. According to Salvio, Polerio accompanied Giovanni Leonardo on his way to Madrid until Genoa.
After returning to Rome around 1584, Polerio became a chess player and writer in ordinary of Giacomo Boncompagni, Duke of Sora and son of Pope Gregory XIII (born Ugo Boncompagni).
Polerio wrote a number of codexes in which a lively international chess dialogue is described involving the exchange of ideas among players in Italy, Portugal, and Spain. In these codexes, besides new ideas regarding chess openings, Polerio describes some of his own matches.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Giulio Cesare Polerio” as italian chess player. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as italian chess player. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q555315. VIAF identifies the subject as 285208913. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1555, 1610, 1634 and 1575.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Giulio Cesare Polerio”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Giulio Cesare Polerio primary sources, Giulio Cesare Polerio archive and Giulio research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Giulio Cesare Polerio”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Giulio Cesare Polerio” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.