Puzzles may be the work of Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci drew many things, including war machines as well as anatomy sketches. Now it seems he may have also been an early illustrator of the chess puzzle.

Experts say the Renaissance genius may have illustrated the puzzles in a long-lost chess treatise recently recovered in the library of an aristocratic family in northern Italy.

The manuscript was penned around 1500 by Luca Pacioli, a mathematician and friend of Da Vinci, and some experts believe the artist may have drawn the elegant pieces that illustrate the chess puzzles discussed in the treatise.

The treatise, “De Ludo Schaccorum” -- Latin for “Of the Game of Chess” -- includes more than 100 chess problems that challenge the player to reach checkmate in a certain number of moves. Today such mind-twisters are popular fixtures in newspapers.