Roberto Magari 1934 - 1994

Eterascacco reports the death of Roberto Magari. He was born in Florence in 1934, and died in Sienna in 1994 after a grave illness. He was one of the founding members of the Italian Heterodox Association (AISE) in the middle 1970s and contributed numerous articles to the Eteroscacco on Progressive Chess and especially Vinciperdi. He was the very first winner of the AISE Progressive Chess Championship in 1975, and he tied for the 4th Championship in 1978 with Mario Leoncini. In Vinciperdi he won the first AISE Chnapionship in 1975 and followed this up by winning the 2nd, 4th, 7th, 9th, and 10th (equal with Aldo Kustrin). This last was in 1991/2. In the first Heterodox Olympiad he was a member of the Italian first team and scored 6 ½ points out of 8 in Vinciperdi. In Italian Progressive Chess he played in 152 recorded games attaining a Muccess rate of 64.38%. He was an exponent of 2.Nc6 d5 to 1.e4 in Italian Progressive, gaining many notable victories. This defence was named the Sienna Defence, after the town where he lived. He was the co-author with Mario Leoncini of the book Manuale di Scacchi Eterodossi which was published in Sienna in 1980. Roberto Magari was a mathematician of the highest class. He gained a degree in mathematics in Florence: afterwards he attained the highest seat in logical mathematics in Italy. He had the distinction of having introduced the study of logical mathematics into Italy, (logical formulae, logic of mathematics, mathematics of logic, etc). He obtained an international reputation by inventing a form of algebra which carries his name. He was much influenced by Bertrand Russell. He was also interested in the problems of morality, writing two important works: Morale e Metamore and Un Approccio Probabilistico ai Problemi Morali. In a moving tribute in Eteroscacco, Roberto Salvadori pays tribute to his extraordinary capacity for the generalisation of problems, for his acute originality, and great intellectual honesty. He finishes by saying that he feels he has lost a part of hinself.