Queen’s Gambit: How Valencia’s 15th-century love poem reshaped the game of chess

Wander down to the Petxina Sports and Culture Complex, and you’ll find a giant chess piece standing outside one of the historic brick buildings: a White Queen. She marks the entrance to Valencia’s Albal Chess Club. Take a peek inside, and you’ll see aspiring chess masters deep in thought, plotting their moves across the black-and-white board.

I’ve passed by a few times on my way to my son’s basketball games. (Incidentally, Petxina is also home to Valencia’s Dinamo Fencing Club— but that’s a story for another Sunday.) I’ve always been curious why the White Queen stands so prominently there. A sign beneath her offers an intriguing clue: “The Piece That Changed History.”

As it turns out, she’s a Valenciana.

The Story of the Queen

Chess was not invented in Valencia. That honor goes to India, where, according to Chess.com, the game first emerged as chaturanga, a military strategy game developed under the Gupta Empire. What we now know as pawns, knights, rooks, and bishops were originally infantry, elephants, cavalry, and chariots. The game traveled west along the Silk Road, gaining particular popularity in Persia, according to UNESCO. The earliest known record dates to the 6th century, when an Indian ambassador presented a chessboard as a gift to the Persian king.

But the chess played by Persian royalty was not yet the modern game we recognize today. It would take nearly a thousand years, and a very different cultural moment, for chess to fully transform.

That moment came in Valencia, around 1475.

And it came wrapped in a love story.

Scachs d’Amor: The Chess Game of Love

It took three Valencian poets to describe this pivotal moment in chess history: two players facing each other across the board, and a third acting as arbiter. In their poem, Scachs d’Amor (Chess of Love in Catalan), each poet waxes rhapsodic about the strategies unfolding in what was, even then, a fiendishly complex game. All three seemed utterly smitten with chess — so much so that some researchers have suggested the poem may be a veiled description of a different kind of amorous contest altogether, according to Chessbase.com.

Regardless of interpretation, this version of chess introduced a radical change: the Queen takes center stage. She replaces the Vizier of the Persian game and wields far greater power. Where the Vizier could move only one square diagonally, the Queen now cuts across the board unimpeded in any direction she chooses. The Bishop, too, is newly empowered, freed from its earlier restriction of moving just two squares diagonally.

(It may not be entirely coincidental that the third poet was an Abbot at the court of the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand, where the growing political power of a female ruler would have been impossible to ignore.)

The Queen Behind the Queen

It’s tempting to assume that the newly powerful Queen piece was inspired directly by Queen Isabel herself, a formidable historical figure who helped unite the Christian kingdoms of Spain. Alas, the story is not quite so simple. As chess historians at Chessbase.com point out, there are earlier hints across Europe, from Italy to Switzerland, of a gradually strengthening female presence on the chessboard.

What Valencia can claim, however, is something just as significant: the earliest recorded game of modern chess, complete with its newly empowered Queen.

Chess: The Game of Love?

No one knows for certain why the poem was framed as a Game of Love. Perhaps it was the intensity and intimacy of the match itself. Medieval legend holds that the doomed lovers Tristan and Isolde fell in love over a game of chess. And in more modern times, the game has sparked its fair share of romances and even weddings. (Chess.com maintains a Valentine-themed list.)

Whatever the inspiration behind Scachs d’Amor, it was a brief battle. The game concluded in just 21 moves. You can read the full English translation of Scachs d’Amor here.

Food for thought next time you pass the historic buildings of the Petxina Sports and Culture Complex. And if you’re inspired to try your own hand at the game, the Albal International Open is still open for registration. It begins on February 1.

---

Have you ever noticed something in Valencia and wondered how it got there, who put it there, or why it still stands? If you have, send Pont de Valencia a note. We’ll try to find you an answer!