Dame of Chess
Realizador Agustí Mezquida
Países Spain
Duração 83 min
Sinopse
In the 15th century the Kingdom of Valencia (Spain) experienced a Golden Age of cultural, scientific and economic flourishing. This period of splendour would reach its pentacle at the same time as the appearance of the Spanish Inquisition and the Catholic Monarch’s edict to expel the Jews from the Spanish territories in 1492, forcing a vast number of intellectuals to flee. A Jewish scholar from Segorbe named Francesch Vicent, inspired by the power of the new queens, introduced the Queen's piece to the game of chess and established the new rules for modern chess, as we know it today. He would leave everything perfectly documented in his Llibre dels jochs partitis dels scachs en nombre de 100 an incunabula published in Catalan language, in Valencia May 15, 1495, ...and the whereabouts of which is unknown, until now. Vicent, along with many other Iberian Jews, found refuge in Papal States under the protective mantle of the Borgias, probably of Jewish origin too and certainly the most powerful Valencia dynasty with two Popes. Having become the family’s very own chess maestro, he would leave behind multiple testimonies reflected in manuscripts and books published in Salamanca, Perugia, Cesena and Rome… from where Modern Chess would expand to the rest of the world.
In the 15th century the Kingdom of Valencia (Spain) experienced a Golden Age of cultural, scientific and economic flourishing. This period of splendour would reach its pentacle at the same time as the appearance of the Spanish Inquisition and the Catholic Monarch’s edict to expel the Jews from the Spanish territories in 1492, forcing a vast number of intellectuals to flee. A Jewish scholar from Segorbe named Francesch Vicent, inspired by the power of the new queens, introduced the Queen's piece to the game of chess and established the new rules for modern chess, as we know it today. He would leave everything perfectly documented in his Llibre dels jochs partitis dels scachs en nombre de 100 an incunabula published in Catalan language, in Valencia May 15, 1495, ...and the whereabouts of which is unknown, until now. Vicent, along with many other Iberian Jews, found refuge in Papal States under the protective mantle of the Borgias, probably of Jewish origin too and certainly the most powerful Valencia dynasty with two Popes. Having become the family’s very own chess maestro, he would leave behind multiple testimonies reflected in manuscripts and books published in Salamanca, Perugia, Cesena and Rome… from where Modern Chess would expand to the rest of the world.