He wrote Questo libro e da imparare giocare a scachi et de li partiti, published in Rome, Italy, in 1512; it went through eight editions in the sixteenth century.

Damiano describes the rules of the game, offers advice on strategy, presents a selection of chess problems (see diagrams), and provides analyses of a few openings.

He also offers advice regarding blindfold chess, principally focused on the need to master notation based on numbering the squares 1–64 (Murray 1913, 788–89).

In this book Damiano suggested chess was invented by Xerxes, which would be why it was known in Portuguese as xadrez and in Spanish as ajedrez.

He rightly condemned 2...f6 as clearly inferior, noting that White can play 3.Nxe5 with advantage; however, the opening later came to be known as the Damiano Defence.