Lucena

Following the Footsteps of Spanish Chess Master Lucena in Italy (1504-1534)

Lucena was the son of the prothonotary Juan Ramírez de Lucena, ambassador of the Catholic monarch in Spain. He wrote a book called Repetición de amores y Arte de Ajedrez con 150 juegos de partido that was published in Salamanca around 1497. Around this time he also wrote another book called Tractado sobre la muerte de Don Diego de Azevedo, but this book was lost. One thing is clear - the name Lucena disappeared and we find it in France in some chess manuscripts and that is all. This has been our research. Its path has not been easy, but thanks to a new authorship recognition program it was possible to detect various books with Lucena’s marks. This book reflects the result of four years’ research and describes the possible life and work of Lucena in Italy, where he became a very famous person at the papal curia. Consequently thanks to this research students have a new line of investigation about the whereabouts of Lucena for 30 years in Italy at their disposa.

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