Scachs d'amor

Scachs d'amor (Valencian for Chess of Love), whose complete title is Hobra intitulada scachs d'amor feta per don Francí de Castellví e Narcis Vinyoles e mossèn Fenollar, is the name of a poem written by Francesc de Castellví, Bernat Fenollar, and Narcís Vinyoles, published in Valencia, Crown of Aragon, towards the end of the 15th century.

First page of the manuscript

The manuscript, written in Valencian language probably in 1475, was discovered in 1905 by Ignacio Casanovas at Capella del Palau. Though the original was lost, a photograph of the codex has been kept at the Library of Catalonia in Barcelona.[1][2][3]

The poem is conceived as a chess game in which the players are Castellví, playing White (in modern chess) (Mars Març, Love Amor, and red pieces in the game), and Vinyoles, playing Black (Venus, the Glory Gloria, and green pieces).[4] They debate about love, and Fenollar comments and establishes the rules. The opening in the game would, centuries later, be called the Scandinavian Defense. Notably, the game ends in a pure mate, which is a specific class of checkmate generally considered to be aesthetically pleasing. Green and red are still used in xiangqi as the colors for the pieces.

The poem uses the game as an allegory for love. Its structure is based upon sixty-four stanzas (the same as the number of chessboard squares), nine verses each. The stanzas are grouped three after three: The first stanza in the group represents White's move, the second one Black's move, and the third one a comment on the rules by the arbiter. The three stanzas in the beginning are an introduction and the last one is checkmate.

This is believed to be the earliest documented game of chess with the modern rules concerning the moves of the queen and bishop.[5][6] However, it is unknown whether the complete modern rules of chess were in use as of this game, because neither player castled or captured en passant.