RARE FIRST EDITION of this famous chess treatise which was reprinted 8 times up to 1861. Ponziani (1719-1796) was the most important chess theorist of the 18th century whose influence is now recognized in the so-called Modena school of which he was the major architect together with Giambattista Lolli and Ercole del Rio. In Il Gioco incomparabile a great number of openings are examined, among which the best known is the one that still bears his name, and above all the techniques for a quick attack are discussed. The chapter dedicated to the main writers of the game represents one of the first bibliographies of the genre and it is now well established that it was this reading that stimulated the historical and collecting interest in Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa.