Entre la història dels escacs i els estudis literaris: el poema al·legòric 'Scachs d'Amor' (vers el 1475)

Abstract

Summary: The subject of the article is the poem Scachs d’Amor by the Valencian authors Bernat Fenollar, Francí de Castellví und Narcís Vinyoles. Written towards the end of the 15th century, it has attracted much interest of historians of chess, because in it one can find the first known description of chess moves distinguishing modern chess from that of the Middle Ages. The focus here, however, is on its literary characteristics and the literary tradition the poem is part of. Relying on recent research, one can show
that the allegorical connection of chess with courtly love was no unknown literary topos. But nobody has asked so far why the 64 stanzas consist of 9 verses each, a number which does not harmonize with the arithmetic of chess, displayed in the poem by its 64 stanzas. The number nine can be linked to the religious subtext hinted at by “Apocalipsi”, the last word of the poem, as well as to a hitherto unknown literary tradition of religious poetry, rooting in Dante’s veneration of the number nine.
Keywords: chess, history, literature, Dante, early modern period, Catalonian, Valencian stanza of nine lines.