The Origins of Chess

Lucena - A mystery after 500 years

By M.C.Romeo

(Director of History Chess Commission of Spanish Federation of Chess, FEDA)

Lucena was one of Ricardo Calvo's favourite chess celebrities, and he devoted great interest and effort to researching his alleged life and work, from the day when he found a facsimile copy dated 1953. As he said, he read it many times (this facsimile copy, published in the Joyas Bibliograficas collection, is number 185 of a total of 250 copies, of which one is deposited with the Spanish National Library.).

The conclusions he reached concerning the author of this book, based on the testimony of Lucena himself, are different from the latest data found by my good friend Govert Westerfeld (a conscientious researcher who continues seeking definitive documentary proof of the history of chess and of checkers, his speciality). They remit the author of the first known book on modern chess to the realm of mystery regarding his personality.

Was he the son of the protonotary of Fernando of Aragon, as he claims repeatedly in his book? According to Westerfeld, in the documents examined in the Royal Chancellery in Valladolid, Spain there is no record of any son recognised in that man's will and testament drawn up in 1501, in which he named his nephew Juan Ramirez de Lucena, his brother's son, as his exclusive heir. Did he use the name Lucena to ensure the distribution of his work? All is said and yet remains to be said. Nonetheless, until there is more evidence in favour of or against the filial connections of the author of the book that made him famous, we have to continue granting him the benefit of the doubt.

Two years after the appearance of the now-lost incunabulum of Vicent, the oldest book of modern chess still in existence was published by a converted Aragonese Jew who called himself Lucena. This book was printed in Salamanca on the press of booksellers named Hutz and Sanz in 1496, or more probably 1497, bearing the following title:

Repetition: de amo
res: E arte. De axedres
con. cl. Iuegos. de partido.

The 124 sheets of the book (two of them blank) in 8vo width - resembling in size a small quarto - (according to Antonius van der Linde) constitute both a treasure for bibliophiles and, in many aspects, a mystery for historians.

The Lucena book is an incunabulum since it was published before the year 1500. The typography is in 82 G Gothic letters, very regular and produced by a German printer named Leonard Hutz who had recently moved to Salamanca from Valencia, where he had been working with those same types. This permits, on the one hand, a more precise dating of the work, and on the other, establishes an important connection with the Valencia group which introduced the printing press there, as well as with the setting in which the new chess came into being with the text of Scacs d'Amor, (written by this same circle) and also with the appearance, within the same network of connections of the book by Vicent, printed by German publishers with close professional and friendly relations with Hutz.

Not a great deal is known about the author Lucena, whose personality remains to a large degree a mystery. Not even his complete name is entirely free of doubt and dispute. In his prologue to the 1953 facsimile edition, Cossio calls him Luis Ramirez de Lucena, based on the authority of Gallardo and on the assertion that "such a prestigious scholar and bibliophile must have had his reasons for calling him with that name."

The source for this name seems to go back to Ticknor, who in his "History of Spanish Literature" (London 1863, vol. I, p. 380), indicates that the chess author was the son of the Ambassador Don Juan Ramirez de Lucena, although other inexactitudes as to the date of the edition and the number of pages lead us to suppose that Ticknor based his comments on other equally dubious references by authors who had never actually had the book in their hands (Van der Linde, Geschichte I, p. 328). I prefer to continue referring to him as Lucena since he defined himself that way, for whatever reasons, although he had indicated the full name of his father the ambassador.

The work of Lucena bears no date but the chess section is "ntitulada al serrenissimo y muy sclarecido don Johan el tercero, principe de las Spaoasi", who was the only male child of Isabel and Fernando the Catholic, born in 1478 and deceased the 4th of October, 1497, for which reason this would logically be the final date for its publication.

In the list of books printed in Salamanca by Leonard Hutz and Lope Sanz found in "Historia de la Imprenta Hispana" (E. Nacional, 1982), books between 1496 and 1497 are all dated except for the last one, which is precisely the Lucena book. Although it does not bear a date, it had to be printed between the work of Rodrigo de Basurto, (the new Professor of Astrology who achieved some measure of fame for having announced the impending death of Prince Don Juan), and the latter's death.

The dedication to the Heir to the Throne, who arrived in Salamanca to take possession of his matrimonial dowry - the city and its university - sounds very much like a rather opportunistic stroke that the course of events twisted tragically. The "Repeticiun de amores" is by its character a student work of celebrations at the end of the school course, but the formally serious treatise on chess following it had to be quickly included in the summer months in order to take advantage of the occasion, which would explain the numerous irregularities it contains.

Lucena makes no mention of his printers or printers, and only thanks to typographical research since the early 20th century is it now known that there were two, Lope Sanz and Leonard Hutz; the latter, because of his greater technical experience, must have been the typographer responsible for the firm newly founded in Salamanca. (It also indicated, along with many other reasons, that Lucena based his work on the plagiary of the 1495 Vicent book in Valencia, since a work with diagrams was something typographically revolutionary and Hutz must have brought it personally from Valencia as a novelty in the art of printing, all the more so if the types themselves had been produced at his own press in Valencia.)

Hutz wound up moving late in 1497 for unknown reasons from Salamanca to Zaragoza, and subsequently returned to Valencia where he continued his printing activities. Hutz's transmission role thus reinforces decisively the mutual connections between Lucena and the literary chess circle of Valencia.

In the Lucena book the diagrams are excellent. Hutz the printer was familiar with the typographic problem of the chess master and found the solution by lightly outlining in white the black chess piece placed against a black square.

The Lucena book is moreover one of the most exotic incunabulums to be found around Libraries. "Extremely rare - above all costly" is how the great writer Menendez y Pelayo described it in the early 20th century. Strange as it may seem, there are still debates as to the number of copies that exist today, and not even prestigious catalogues are free from errors, sometimes deplorable ones. The most recent catalogue of 15th-18th century books of games, Bibliographie der Spielbacher des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts. Manfred Zollingeri, Hiersemann. Stuttgart 1996, pp. 4-5) refers to the existence of only a small part. It mentions the copies in London, Paris, Brussels and also the famous one in the Communal Library of Sienna which seems to be a manuscript, the only copy left in Italy. There are at least eight copies in Spain and several more in foreign collections. Not all of them are intact and complete, since some have a page or more missing while others lack the first part, the "Repetition". This is one of the matters that have been most widely discussed by Lucena researchers.

The copies preserved in Spain are: the three complete tomes at the National Library in Madrid, one copy in the library of the Royal Academy of History and another in the Library of Cataluoa. Copies with defects are to be found in the El Escorial Library and above all in the University Library of Salamanca, from which the first pages before the treatise on chess were torn out for some unknown reason. To these must be added the copy in the private collection of Bartolome March, mention of which is due to the director of the incunabulum section at the Spanish National Library, Mr. Julian Martin Abad.

There are more copies outside Spain. The great German historian and bibliophile Von der Lasa, while posted at that country's diplomatic legation in Brazil, found a mutilated and incomplete copy which nevertheless was used in his first specialised research. The text had been taken to Brazil as part of the library of King Joao VI of Portugal when he and the court fled during the Napoleonic invasion. Van der Linde (Geschichte I, p. 329) indicates that it is a very defectively conserved copy. It has recently been used in a Brazilian edition of the chess text. (Altair da Souza. Rio de Janeiro 1974).

In the United States there are complete copies in the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.) and in the Cleveland Library as well as in the J. Pierpont Library (New York). Yet another, complete and very well preserved (except for its lack of the first two pages), is the copy acquired in 1853 by the British Library (BL I. A. 52864), the prime basis for research by British historians. The aforementioned Van der Linde used extensively in his research the copy at the Brussels National Library which at that time bore the code number II. 13790 and which is otherwise identical to the British copy. The National Library of Paris owns a copy, incomplete since it contains only the chess part, that bears the marking Rés. V 1858. On page 60 of his study about Lucena, J. Perez deArriaga adds the following copies in the United States: the Houghton Library at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Princeton University in New Jersey and the Henry E. Huntington Library in San Marino, California. The most splendid copy of all is in a private German collection, that of Lothar Schmid, in Bamberg.

In Spain, a facsimile bonded edition of 250 copies was brought out by the Joyas Bibliograficasi collection (Madrid-Valencia 1953) on the basis of a copy in Spain's National Library. In 1975 I acquired number 75 of this limited series, thanks to Seville chess player A. Campoy, and have read it repeatedly, and meanwhile have continued searching for anything related to the work and the period that I can come across. In 1997, coinciding with the appearance of Ricardo Calvo's book "Lucena: the Chess Evasion of the Convert Calisto" (Perea Ediciones, 1997. El Toboso), an excellent new facsimile edition was brought out by Ediciones Polifemo, Madrid.

The contents of Lucena's book are also strange since it begins, as we have seen, with a "Repetition" or academic dissertation, a university lesson on a theme of love that has nothing to do with chess, although the part devoted to this game is clearly differentiated and by far the most voluminous typographically.

It is like a little mosaic made up of many different pieces. To analyse them, we come up against the initial obstacle which only a few researchers have paid attention to.

The great difference in subject matter leads chess historians and specialists in literature to concentrate, in each case, only on their respective subjects, passing over the other part. In his work "Origins of the Novel", Menendez y Pelayo (1905. Red. Santander 1943. II, p. 55) and, after him, Hurtado and Palencia, classified the "Repetition" as a simple "sentimental tale" and "immature schoolboy essay".

The "Repetition" is aimed in its final part towards another popular and common theme in that period which has nothing to do with love: the relative superiority of military science over letters and philosophy. In this debate, Lucena takes the side of the military argument and it is here that he again mentions his father, providing the following data:

"Not even for this, insofar as I am under obligation to the legal counsels, although my father the protonotary be one of them, I will not cease to confess the truth."

At the end of the "Repetition" we find a "Peroration" written by the most great orator the Bachelor Villoslada in honour and glory of him by whom the present work was dictated. At the end of the peroration is a poem with a series of acrostic verses; joining the first letter of each, one reads "A Villoslada", although this interesting detail has escaped the attention to date of everyone who has commented on the work.

A quien siempre por serviros
nunca vive sin dolor
ino le negueis el favori.

Vive siempre padeciendo
de no veros con temor;
está en pena, aunque viviendo,
pues os llama ya muriendo,
ino le negueis el favori.

Jamas cesan sus sospiros
que le causa vuestro amor;
por quereros y seguiros
nunca cesa de pediros,
ino le negueis el favori.

La menor de sus pasiones
le pone tanto pavor,
que le causa mil prisiones;
y pues hay diez mil razones,
ino le negueis el favori

La tristeza de sus males
no sabe pena mayor:
que sus angustias finales
os suplican ya mortales,
ino le negueis el favori.

Otro bien si a vos no tiene,
sois su luz y su claror,
pues quien tanta fe sostiene
y es contento aunque mas pene,
ino le negueis el favori

Solo fue causa escribir
publicar vuestro loor,
pues que no basta sofrir
a sin vos poder vivir,
ino le negueis el favori

La virtud y la nobleza
nunca muestra desamor;
pues porque mostrais crueza
a tan crescida pobreza,
ino le negueis el favori

A la fe de bien serviros,
que jamás sufriu error,
ya no basta consentiros,
mas suplicar y deciros,
ino le negueis el favori

Despues que por fuerte ser
y no oisteis su clamor,
distes causa a padecer
y no queriendo valer,
le negastes el favor,

Ansi que pues hizo veros
fuese vuestro servidor,
pues es siervo por quereros
de la vida conoceros,
ino le negueis el favori.

 

The second and most voluminous part of the book, dedicated to chess, bears the following enormously pompous title, but in which he once more explicitly gives the name and position of his father:

"Brief art and most necessary introduction to knowing how to play chess, with one hundred and fifty game moves; dedicated to the most serene and illustrious Don Johan the Third, Prince of the Spains. By Lucena, son of the most wise doctor and reverend protonotario Don Johan Ramirez de Lucena, ambassador and member of the Council of our lords the King and Queen, studying in the distinguished Studium of the most noble city of Salamanca."

Lucena is so sure of being identified as a highly reputed chess player that he does not bother to give his full name, but does give that of his father, a high dignitary at Court, ambassador, Council member and Protonotario, which is another credential in favour of the student-chessman of Salamanca.

The importance of Lucenais chess treatise is that we are talking about nothing less than the first work in print still extant about modern chess, substituting the old medieval moves of the bishop and the "alferza" for the ones we use today.

In explaining the new rules of the game, Lucena makes a careful distinction between the new way of playing, which he calls "of the queen" and "the old one used previously". The 150 chess problems are likewise classified into one of the two groups or the other, which indicated that both forms coexisted in Salamanca when the student Lucena wrote his book. The chess part, with its 150 wood print diagrams, is far and away the most voluminous section and is dedicated to the prince, a youth of 19 years, of whom Lucena says at the end of his dedication:

"After reverently kissing the hands of the Crown Prince, begging the Supreme Being, to whom the voices of the people that He conserve him and grant a long life, that He lavish prosperity to the State with glory and everlasting fame. Amen"

Prince Juan grew up and died almost silently, as though he had tiptoed through life. His birth in Seville on 30th June, 1478 was overshadowed and muffled by the war then being waged against Portugal. His infancy passed discreetly, though with rare and brief but brilliant appearances within the general context of the era, riding horseback beside his mother in the entry into just-conquered Granada in 1492, and again (is this the "art of chivalry" mentioned by Lucena?) beside his father King Fernando in the triumphal reception given to Columbus upon his return from the first voyage of discovery.

The prince was the second child and only male born to Fernando and Isabel. Therefore he was declared heir to the throne and assumed destined to reign someday as "Juan the Third", which is how Lucena lauds him. For this reason, great care was given to his education both in political science and in the development of his artistic skills. There are no explicit references to chess as part of the prince's curriculum but it is well known that at the royal court chess enjoyed great prestige. King Fernando himself was an inveterate player: in the words of Hernando de Pulgar, the official chronicler, he spent "a bit more time than he should have" on this game.

Lucena was surely well informed by his father of this characteristic of the Spanish Royal Court, which allowed him to speculate with his intentions. In his dedication student Lucena praises the prince to an exaggerated degree, calling Don Juan's attention to his own chess proficiency as though he were trying to become a sort of chess mentor at the court. That was really not a wild idea, since in those days a printed book was a novelty, and an attractive one that would not have gone unnoticed.

What matter that Lucena went to great lengths to bring out the chess book opportunely on the occasion of the prince's visit to Salamanca, or made a huge effort in the short period of time available between the Repetition of Loves at the end of the school course and the conclusion of the Chess Treatise. No matter that for this he would have had to appropriate material from the Vicent book, Lucena played his card and destiny proved to be adverse. The addition about the prince grafted onto the dedication turned out to be decisive for the future of Lucena's work.

Only this can explain the book's lack of circulation, the virtual ignorance concerning it almost all over Italy (except for the manuscript copy we have mentioned in Sienna), the lack of repercussion across the rest of Europe and the absence of translations or reprints. The dedication to Prince Juan dragged the book to an early grave. Lucena seldom speaks about himself and always in an indirect way. In his dedication to the prince, he describes himself as a student from outside Salamanca and, above all, the son of "the most wise and reverend protonotary Don Johan Ramirez de Lucena, ambassador and member of the Council of our lords the King and Queen." His father, wise, learned, holder of high political posts, royal notary and ambassador, is his best calling card. Lucena could even omit his first name with the certainty of not being mistaken for any of the other thousands of students in Salamanca. It is in this society of guile and chicanery, of surpassing vitality, rocked by "merry youth and bachelorhood" surrounding our author and his comrades that the work of Lucena must be situated. It is this background setting we must keep in mind in order to correctly interpret certain aspects of his text and the circumstances in which it was written.

The advice given by Lucena in his chess treatise discloses the concern for details typical of true professionals. In the text he indicates some tricks quite removed from what is considered fair play: "become familiar with the same board and chess pieces, avoid space disorientation by placing the king on whichever side you are accustomed to, if need be by turning the board around without your adversary noticing it", which sounds more common to a chess shark than an amateur player. Also, slightly modifying the best known positions so that the problem does not fulfil what was announced, and the side one is defending becomes the winner. For this reason, Lucena adds some prudent recommendations to "avoid cries" or shouts of fury from the adversary.

Regarding the 150 chess moves included in the book, Ricardo Calvo had this to say.

"In a chess tournament in El Algarve in November 1975, in which Yuri Averbach and I played and had a very friendly relationship, we had an opportunity to talk at length. Our subject was the origin of modern chess. I spoke especially of my incipient investigation into Lucena and the 1953 facsimile copy of his book which I had a copy of and had read several times. Averbach advised me: 'Don't delve too much into Lucena and his 150 chess problems, but instead look into Vicent and his 100 lost chess problems, because I strongly suspect that Lucena drew his material in large measure from the lost Valencia incunabulum.' The great Master, "in every sense", wound up 10 years later publishing in a Russian magazine called "Science and Life" (1985, pp. 137-141) an extraordinarily convincing interpretive theory.

I found to begin with that the initial suspicion of the plagiary of Vicent by Lucena was much older. It appeared in "Letters on Chess" (London 1848) by W. Lewis, which said literally: "It is very probable that Lucena copied many of his [problems] from Vicent's work, the rarest of all the printed books on Chess, and probably the first Chess that was ever printed. I have not been so fortunate as to meet with a copy, nor do I know anyone who has." (Letter II, pp. 7-8).

This theory increasingly fascinated me as I began coming across data that reinforced it. In the first place, if someone appropriates for himself a book containing 100 chess problems he ought to add something else and that is why Lucena felt obliged to present as "a completed rosary" - a compilation of 150 game moves. In the other medieval compilations of problems no indication was made of the number, either in the title or on the cover.

How many problems and what kind of problem were plagiarized by Lucena? Averbach undertook these aspects in his articles through an exhaustive comparison of diagrams, and came to the following conclusions: 1/Lucena expropriated 96 problems from Vicent (73 "of the queen" and 23 "of the old-fashioned type"; 2/Lucena had to add 54 "old-fashioned" problems (18-67, 101-102 and 145-146) and 3/ the Vicent book therefore had 75 problems of the new chess, 23 of the old chess and two undefined ones.

There is currently a debate, apparently on the rise, about whether Lucena is the author of the modern chess problems. Averbach, in the aforementioned work, supports the idea that Lucena used the contents of the 1495 Vicent incunabulum for the material on modern chess.

What Lucena says literally is:

"I attempt to write all the best moves that I have seen players make in Rome and all over Italy, and in France and Spain, and that I myself have been able to achieve."

From these remarks one clearly concludes that Lucena does not intend in the least to pass himself off as the author of the problems, which for the most part he "saw players make". Some of them he "was able to achieve himself".

On the contrary, the Repetition of loves is "composed by Lucena", and the peroration of Villoslada is directed "in praise and glory to he who dictated the present work."

If Lucena himself had composed one of the endings, very obviously he would not have hesitated to say so. When he likes a position, for example, he says it is very subtle but never claims it as being his own, which he certainly would have done had he been able to prove it. This point, though negative, is quite weighty. The whole work was printed and published in order to extol Lucena's merits. Why would he have hidden inventions of chess subtleties if they were his own?

Lucena never says that he is the author or composer of a single one of the 150 chess problems, which seems strange in a work aimed at exalting his chess merits, above all before Prince Juan, the Spanish Crown Prince to whom it was dedicated. There is an indirect clue based on an unwritten code of gamblers and text plagiarists. The genuine author of a book would proudly give his own full name, and data such as his profession, place of birth and residence. On the other hand, the compiler of a work that is not his own would hide behind pseudonyms, such as Bonus Socius and Civis Bononiae, at times with coded acrostic verses, or simply offering ambiguities as to the authorship like the laconic "Lucena".

Lucena undoubtedly consulted such a source, from which he took a good part of his chess cases. The source was a Florentine manuscript by Civis Bononiae. Lucena presented 150 chess problems which he divided into 75 moves "of the queen" or new chess, and 75 "of the old school" or Arabic-medieval chess. This classification also affords many debatable aspects. The majority of the problems of the "old chess" are identifiably from the two great European compilations, "Bonus Socius" and "Civis Bononiae".

The habits and style of a gambler or cheater consist in the way he behaves and in his bits of advice. He appreciates sly or deceitful solutions, such as that to problem 103 that can confuse the adversary. And he is decidedly inclined to resort to the most shameful tricks in order to win the bet, as is demonstrated in one of his problems and the revealing commentary accompanying it. The case in question shows us that by following his advice Lucena won the bet whether with white pieces or black ones, the bet being the end game in that milieu of game sharks, students and unsavoury characters. The game was famous in the Middle Ages; it is number 72 of Bonus Socius, and number 47 of Civis Bononiae.

As matters of curiosity for those interested in chess playing, of all the openings Lucena passes on to us not one bears his own name, nor are the "Scandinavian Defence" or the "Sachs diamon" called Valencian Opening.

Lucena composed the chess treatise in great haste and as an appendix to the text of his "Repeticion de amores". Prince Juan, to whom it was dedicated, had just come into the limelight in April of 1497 with his lavish wedding. The end of the academic course in Salamanca, where the parody of the Repetition probably took place, would have been in May or June. Upon seeing the Vicent incunabulum in the possession of the printer Hutz, or on learning from him of the printing in Valencia of the Vicent treatise, Lucena expropriated it and added his own data about chess, all of which would have taken place during the summer months before the prince's death in October. It has been seen that Lucena was not from Salamanca, since that is what he says; he may have come from somewhere in the Kingdom of Aragon, as his father declared that his family is subject to the laws of that realm. He did so in the famous letter of complaint to the king:

"For a good service, a bad reward. That is the law of Aragon."

Quite probably, the ancestral home of the Lucenas was in the region of Soria close to Medinaceli and Almazan. In 1503, Lucena was in Saragossa with his father and at least one brother, named Jeronimo.

In order to estimate his date of birth we must keep in mind that the book was published in 1497, when Lucena was still a student. Although the customary age for beginning studies in Salamanca was anywhere from 14 to 16 years of age, when Lucena wrote his book he was already a few years older. We need only observe the tone of contained superiority with which he describes his beloved ("she was of such a tender age that she had not yet turned 16"). Lucena gives the impression of someone who had already been to Italy and France, that he is so well known in the University of Salamanca that he can skip mention of his given name among 7,000 other students there, that he is experienced in amorous affairs, with a procuress who is a good friend of his, with prostitutes he says he no longer pursues. He has been in Salamanca long enough to have accumulated references about his lady love, of whom he says:

"for which reason, having often heard praise for this work of mine from that lady whom I loved, and seeing that some upon hearing that felt envy: and others pain - and even though I had no knowledge other than having heard praise by the most perfect woman in the world."

On an average 10 years were required to complete studies. A graduate would then be about 25 years old. There was a prior grade or title, that of "Bachiller", which required some six years of study, and the Bachiller Fernando de Rojas would be between 20 and 25 years of age.

Lucena did not have the degree or title of "Bachiller" since, if he had been entitled to use it, he would surely have mentioned it in a work so clearly aimed at exalting his own merits. On the other hand he does refer to the degree of his friend and carousal mate, the Bachiller Villoslada. What is significant here is that, in his laudatory peroration, the latter includes himself in Lucena's age group:

"...whereby those of (y)our age who surprise and spur ourselves on to never sleep, and quite wakeful follow (y)our steps have been obliged"

The author of the "Repetition" and the chess treatise would therefore be between 20 and 25 years old, having been born sometime between 1470 and 1475. His lack of academic degree could be due to prior travels to France and Italy (presumably accompanying his father on his diplomatic missions), or perhaps to his failing courses because of time he dedicated to chess. At least this is what floats in the air in an indirect lamentation by Lucena, when he advises readers of his treatise:

"...and anyone who is a student should believe me because I know what this is, that if he wants to take advantage of his talent and memory, he should not spend much time playing so that the time lost therein be minor and no cause for grief: since otherwise it could well alter his talent and upset his memory."

Lucena had the excuse and alibi of his special social status, as the son of a high Court dignitary and privileged student at the University of Salamanca. But his behaviour is that of a gambler. Thanks to his Repetition we know about his friendship with pimps, of his night-time carousing with his colleagues (Quirus, the Bachiller Villoslada, readers of his Repetition), of his relations with "women of ill-repute" and his advice in the very first rule about taking one's chess opponent off-guard in conditions of inferiority, with details that show the attention of a real professional to the ambience surrounding a chess bet.

The following biographical clue appeared in Saragossa around Christmastime of 1503, with his father and at the least a brother, Jeronimo. Following this date, proofs are far weaker. There is a chess game supposedly played in Huesca in 1515 between Lucena and a Father Quintana, published in "La Nueva Espana", a daily newspaper of that city, on 14 March, 1959. The journalist makes a vague allusion to "a document from a private collection" which is difficult to follow up without more accurate details. After the year 1515, the evidence is much weaker. The traces seem to fade between France and Bologna, as though our chess player had emigrated from Spain, and it is precisely in Bologna where two subsequent chess works appear.

Lucena's passion for chess is beyond all doubt, not only because of his 1497 book. It is not known when it was, before that or after, that he wrote the three chess manuscripts attributed to him today with little or no doubt: the so-called Gottingen manuscript, the Paris-Place manuscript that bears his signature with rubric, and the manuscript of Paris f.allemand 107 which corresponds in content to the previous ones and which in all 12 openings carries the designation of Lucena as author. The three texts form a rather consistent chain: Salamanca 1496-97, then Bologna around 1500 and finally any zone of France between 1530 and 1550.

Whether early or later, altogether the manuscript's printed matter portrays Lucena for us as one of the many itinerant players and professionals of the Middle Ages wandering all over Europe, driven by their chess passion.

In 1922 the French bibliophile Victor Place published in the magazine "L'Estrategie" the discovery of a chess manuscript. The enormous importance of the discovery hinged on the fact that it bore Lucena's signature ("Luzena" in black ink, with an initial rubric in red). The 84 pages contain 28 chess problems and an analysis of 20 openings. This material entails a more technically evolved compilation than that of the Salamanca text, which it completes, perfects and follows in the same order. The Paris manuscript, as it is known, is written in a mixture of old French and Proven al Catalonian and dates back approximately to 1530-1550. It was sold at auction in Paris in 1991 at a record price. Its current owner remains anonymous. Victor Place has also attributed to Lucena the authorship of the work known as the "Gottingen Manuscript" which bears no date but is thought to have been written around the year 1500. It comes from the area of Bologna, is written in Latin, and shows strong Spanish influences in the technical chess terms. The contents of this manuscript are 12 openings and 30 problems, all in the "new chess" style. It represents an intermediate link between the Salamanca work, which it also surpasses technically, repeating its material in the same order, and the Paris manuscript.

In the Gottingen manuscript, the dedication technique is used, as did Lucena, and it refers to someone to whom the treatise is dedicated with great respect, employing the "Vos" form instead of the familiar "T'", calling him "Dominatio vestrai", "Serenissime princeps", "Magnifie domine" and similar vocatives. This constitutes an echo of the dedication Prince Juan in the Salamanca incunabulum. In his analysis in depth of the linguistic peculiarities of the Latin text of Gottingen, German research scholar Gorschen comes to the following deductions about the author: "he had a solid humanistic education, he wrote the work for a prince or a top-level personality; his chess force is that of a Master and his linguistic turns of phrase point probably to Spain or, to a lesser extent, to Portugal."

After these clues and more or less well-based speculation, the figure and all traces of Lucena fade away altogether.