by Alessandro Sanvito, chess history scholar
Brief Notes on the Universe or The Millennial History of Chess
the images illustrating the editorial are taken from Ruy Lopez de Segura The Game of Chess again translated into Italian by Gio. Domenico Tarsia. Venice, 1584
Among the games of ancient origin that have been preserved, albeit with various modifications, to the present day, perhaps the most worthy of attention is undoubtedly that of chess. It possesses, in addition to the natural aspect of intellectual competition, a precise symbolic connotation, frequently used as a metaphor for human events in all their manifestations.
The king
The birth of chess, certainly oriental, remains obscure to this day: China, India, Persia, dispute the honor of its invention, however multiple clues, and etymological arguments, perhaps decisive, lead to the belief that its cradle was ancient India. Historically, the oldest mentions of the game are found in three Persian poems. In the Wizarisn i Chatrang – by far the most important – it is said that the Great King of all the Indies, to test the intelligence and wisdom of the Persian rulers, sent a Chatrang (a Pahlavi term for chess), made of sixteen ruby red pieces and sixteen emerald green pieces, to King Cosroe “of the immortal soul” (Chosroe Iº Nushirawan, 531-578 according to many, or Cosroe IIº Parwiz, 590-628 according to others).
The text continues by telling that after three days Wuzurgmihr, the sage at the court of Khosrau, managed to explain the Chatrang and its laws.
For the first time, the names of the game pieces and their arrangement on the board are provided: “The king (Shah) serves to indicate the two supreme leaders; at his side the general in chief (Farzin); the elephant (Pil) serves to indicate the commander of the guard; the horse (Asp) serves to indicate the commander of the cavalry; the war chariot (Rukh) on the left and right serves to indicate the elite troops and the infantry (Piydah) indicate the units on the battle front”.
The terms of the Persian poem have no etymological reference in Pahlavi but become clear and significant if they are considered to be derived from Sanskrit; the name of the game Chatrang itself is nothing but the translation of the Sanskrit term Caturanga. The etymology of Catur – four and – Anga – parts of a whole – refers to the traditional four elements in which the Indian army of those times was organized.
The Queen
When the Arabs invaded Persia (ca. 641 AD), they learned about the game, the pieces used to play it, and their names; they transformed the Pahlavi term Chatrang into Shatranij because the sounds ch and g seemed foreign to the Arabic language. In the wake of the expansion of Arab culture and domination, the game spread through Mediterranean Africa to southern Europe. Mainly from the south, but also through other routes, chess entered all of Europe.
Archaeological finds testify that chess had already arrived on our continent in the 10th century and with the game, Europeans learned the Arabic names of the pieces.
Shah (from which Shah Mat, the king is dead or the king is lost, hence by phonetic assonance, checkmate) was translated into King, understood as the supreme piece around which the whole game revolves. Asp and Piydah were simply translated into Knight and Pawn, while the Elephant, Pil, in Arabic Fil and with the article, as is customary in their language, al-Fil, became by phonetic similarity alfino in ancient Italian and then Alfiere. More complicated are the interpretations and transformations that have undergone the pieces that we today call Rook and Queen.
The War Chariot in Persianized Arabic Rukh, by phonetic juxtaposition became in Latin roccus, in Italian rocco (from which the verb arroccare, still in use today) then rocca and Torre.
The equivalent of Donna, according to recent studies, seems to be in Pahlavi frazen, from which the Arabic firzan or ferz, or something similar to a counselor or a minister. With the spread of the game, the name and meaning of the piece underwent profound modifications, precisely because the original meaning of the word had been lost. In the West, due to phonetic similarity, firzan became, through an imaginative popular etymology, ferza, fierge, vierge, starting that transformation towards Regina that is usual in Europe. The innovation is of erudite origin and appears for the first time in the medieval pseudo-Ovidian poem De Vetula:
“sex species saltus excernet sex quoque scaci, Miles et alphinus, roccus, rex, virgo, pedesque”.
What can a virgo be next to her king, if not a queen?
At the beginning of the first millennium, chess was widespread in almost all of Europe; news of the great Arab players such as as Suli, al Lajlaj, ar Razi, ali as Shatrangi still circulated in our continent. Their fame was so great that it became proverbial: for centuries, when one wanted to glorify the skill of a chess player, one would say “You play like as Suli”.
The game of chess, which at least until the fourteenth century did not differ much from the Arabic game, whose rules had been entirely imported, immediately became very popular. The authors of the stories of the Knights of the Round Table contributed significantly to its rapid diffusion; thus chess was included in the “songs of deeds”, in the Breton saga of King Arthur, in the stories of the paladins of France, in the religious legends of the Grail, with fantastic tales of romantic tradition. The troubadours sing of Lancelot’s knights who compete with the beautiful lady of the castle on a chessboard whose pieces move at the touch of a magic ring; whoever wins if he marries her, becomes lord of the castle and of the enchanted chessboard.
Standard Bearer
Of particular interest are the numerous codices found, mostly written in Latin, and less frequently in the vernacular. Important from a technical point of view are the collections known as Bonus Socius and Civis Bononiae which do not report games played, but “partiti”. That is, something similar to the current “endgames” and “problems”, in which one of the two colors, moving first, committed to checkmate in a precise number of moves, “neither more nor less”. These texts circulated unchallenged until the end of the sixteenth century and it would be impossible to explain the appearance of a number of skilled players, without a corresponding success of the game among the powerful. During the Renaissance there was no Court, at least among the most celebrated, that did not include among its protégés some strong chess player. After all, that chess was the favorite intellectual pastime of the Lords of the Renaissance is a widely attested fact; Baldassar Castiglione, in his Book of the Courtier, defined the game as “gentle entertainment and ingenious”.
The ways in which the game was introduced into Europe explain why the first great continental players were almost all from southern Europe. The first incunabulum, by Francesch Vicent, was published in Valencia in 1495, but we know of it only through the testimony of bibliophiles since the text has never reached us. The second printed work – this one has reached us in few copies – was written by Lucena, also Spanish, in 1497.
In 1512 a third treatise appeared by the Portuguese Damiano, who lived for a long time in Rome and finally the Spanish priest Ruy Lopez de Segura, perhaps the greatest chess player of his time, published his rare treatise on chess in 1561.
In Italy, Gio. Leonardo de Bona, originally from Cutro, in Calabria, known as “il Puttino” for his small stature, was famous in Naples, Rome and Madrid where, in the presence of King Philip II, he defeated Ruy Lopez in a memorable match; Paolo Boi, known as the “Syracusan” from his hometown; Oratio Gianutio from Amantea, author of the first original Italian chess book; Giulio Cesare Polerio from Lanciano, known as the “Abruzzese” who left us a series of rare chess documents, and above all Gioacchino Greco from Celico in the province of Cosenza, who after his short life, was considered a sort of World Chess Champion ante litteram.
Nor can we forget the great treatise writers of the seventeenth century such as Alessandro Salvio of Naples, the learned Sicilian priest Don Pietro Carrera, authors of important chess texts.
A golden age for chess in our country: as the fame of the Iberian theorists declined, the Italians were establishing themselves among the most reputed players in the world and the chess schools of Italy attracted enthusiasts from all over Europe, at least up to the “three greats from Modena”: the magistrate Ercole del Rio, Giovan Battista Lolli and the canon Domenico Ponziani, the last witnesses of a fame that was now disappearing. After them, with the exception of the Roman master Serafino Dubois, it was the decline.
The 19th century was the century that marked Italy’s detachment from Europe: should the Italian rules of the game be aligned with the international ones or not? It was a big question that helped isolate our chess players from their European colleagues. Today, that event having been overcome, chess is taught in schools and, more and more often, is the subject of university studies.
The time of the romantic game was over, and the so-called scientific game began, because chess is in perpetual evolution, today as in the past. This is why, prepared by long theoretical studies, trained by an often very rich experience, the great contemporary champions rarely rely on an immediately decisive combination: intuition works in the long term.
But those who can see in the subtle lucubrations of the champions not only the evolutions of the pieces, but also the combinatorial possibilities that emerge at each move and that are evaluated in a sort of abstract representation, will find in the modern game a logical and cerebral beauty, cold but fascinating.
A history of over 1500 years cannot, evidently, be condensed in a few lines; this quick excursus – we hope – can perhaps give a general image on which, however, we can return for further insights. Because although entertainment in its essence, art and technique in form, even science of the regulatory framework, the game of chess is always a reason for fairy tales and mystery.
We have prepared a small bibliographical itinerary with works on chess owned by Casanatense. Without claiming to be complete, it is offered as a first track to facilitate the work of those who want to undertake and continue research on this topic with us.
The images in the Gallery belong to the edition of Orlando Furioso published in Milan by the Treves brothers in 1899 with a preface by Carducci and illustrations by the great Gustave Doré.
The juxtaposition of the world of Ariosto with that of chess may be daring but not far-fetched: kings, queens, knights, rooks, pawns and battles crowd the chessboards as well as the tercets of Orlando Furioso and the beautiful illustrations that adorn them, overflowing, in this 19th century edition of the chivalric poem.
The Casanatense owns many editions of Orlando Furioso starting from the 16th century, all of great bibliographic value.
But we chose this 19th century one precisely because of the visionary nature of Doré’s drawings, which reinterprets Orlando according to the canons of Romanticism, also allowing himself the absolute freedom of an invention perfectly free from philological intentions.
In truth, we would not exclude the possibility that, in the paradise of the sorceress Alcina, among the pleasant amusements and games with which young lovers passed their time (before being transformed into monstrous or vegetal creatures), there was also chess.
Ludovico Ariosto Orlando Furioso with a preface by Giosué Carducci illustrated by Gustavo Doré. Milan, Treves, [1899]