Site review - La storia, personaggi e biblio
Mark Weeks
bookmarks, is for 'La storia, personaggi e biblio' by Marco A. Alberti. This
site, like the last two sites ('Max Euwe Centrum' & 'Schach-Ereignisse') I'll
be doing in this series of reviews, is not written using the English
language. There's no denying that sites written in other languages need more
effort to understand the content. I only review them if I feel the content is
worth the effort. The Alberti site is at address...
http://www.queen.it/web4you/noprofit/keres/storia.html
...and is well worth the effort. Because the site is written in Italian, I
used the translation service at translator.go.com, which translated the site
name to 'the history, personages and biblio'.
Unfortunately, an annoying error has crept into the Go.com service since I
last used it. Go now presents the results in a framed page, where the top
frame is the Go logo and the bottom frame is the translated page. The great
value of the Go service is that links on the translated page are
automatically set to translate the linked page -- you just have to click on
the link to have the next page translated. When I clicked on these links I
received another double frame page with the Go logo plus the translated page,
but this in the bottom frame of the previous page. This meant that I was now
looking at two Go logos plus the translated page. Clicking on another link
gave me three Go logos, with very little space to present the translated
page. I groaned, complained to no one in particular, and continued.
The Alberti site has eight main pages. It is primarily a text site, although
there is a small image in the upper right corner of each page. The texts have
no margins and no paragraph breaks, which makes the pages somewhat hard to
read. Large blocks of unbroken text make an ugly sight on a computer screen.
Go.com translates the title of the first page as 'Le origini...'. It covers
the origins of the game, its early introduction to the Mediterranean
countries of Europe, and the first great players of the modern game, who were
Italian. The page ends with a description of the matches between Leonardo da
Cutro and the Spaniard Ruy Lopez.
The second page, 'School romantica' according to the Go.com translation,
continues with the exploits of the early Italian players. Paolo Boi is given
credit as the inventor of the Sicilian Defence and Gioacchino Greco ('il
Calabrese') is called the last great Italian player of the era. Despite
another century of talented Italians like Lolli & del Rio, chess prowess
spread from Italy to other parts of Europe. The 18th century saw Stamma,
Philidor, Allgaier, and Deschapelles, with Philidor the strongest player
before the 19th century.
'The first tornei' covers the 1851 London international tournament won by
Anderssen, the phenomenal Morphy, and the scientific theories of Steinitz. It
continues with the start of the world championship matches, through the 1921
Capablanca - Lasker match. 'First the 900' (sic, 'IL PRIMO 900' in the
original), covers Alekhine's matches, the void left by his death, and the
rise of FIDE. It continues with Botvinnik's win in 1948, and gives an
overview of the Soviet world champions through Spassky.
'Towards the end of the century' covers Fischer's 1972 match with Spassky and
his abdication of the chess crown. It ends with the Karpov - Korchnoi
matches. 'The race to the title' is the shortest of the eight main pages. It
covers Kasparov's stunning victories in the 1982-1983 world championship
cycle, up to his win over Smyslov in the final candidates match. 'Champion of
the world' covers the first two Kasparov - Karpov matches, through Kasparov's
win in the 24th game of the second match. The page also lists the world
champions, starting with Anderssen in 1851.
'Our days' overviews the events since 1985, mentioning many of the best
players of the 1990s. It gives credit for the material on the site to the
'historical bibliography draft from "The HANDBOOK Of CHESS" by Sergio
Mariotti'.
This is the only site I know of, in any language, which outlines the
evolution of chess from its ancient origins to the Kasparov era. Most of the
material is well known to amateur chess historians, and if there were nothing
more than the eight main pages, I might not have included it on the list of
Chess History bookmarks. What makes this site interesting is that, at
appropriate points, the main pages link to other pages on the same site. Each
of the 51 other pages presents a biography of one great player.
Since this is an Italian site, and since Italian players dominated the game
during the first two centuries of the modern game, it is no surprise that the
early era is covered in more depth than later eras. Let's take a look at the
Italian players linked from Alberti's first two pages. Here they are, ordered
by birthyear of the player:-
Boi, Paolo 1528-1598
Polerio, Giulio 1550-1610
Cutro, Leonardo da 1552-1597
Salvio, Alessandro 1570-1640
Carrera, Pietro 1573-1647
Greco, Gioacchino 1600-1634
Lolli, Giovan Battista 1698-1769
Del Rio, Ercole 1720-1800
Many of the dates are approximate. A few dates are missing from Alberti's
site, so I took them from Hooper & Whyld's 'Oxford Companion to Chess'.
That's an impressive list of players by any standard, but others who could
have been included are:-
Damiano, Pedro ????-1544 (b. Portugal)
Gianutio, Orazio 15xx-16xx
Ponziani, Domenico 1719-1796
How did these players come to be considered as the first greats of the modern
game? Sometime toward the end of the 15th century, the rules of chess as we
know it were introduced. The moves of the queen and bishop were extended to
their current powers and the right of all pawns to move two squares on the
first move was standardized. In 'Chess - the History of a Game', Eales
writes, 'it is ironic that the game of chess experienced the only major
change in its internal structure in over a thousand years of documented
history through a single and dramatic shift in its rules of play'. The rule
changes made the game more lively than its medieval predecessor.
While there is no evidence proving that the new rules of chess came from any
particular place, it was almost certainly in a Mediterranean country. Along
with the Italian players, the Spaniards were also good players -- the names
of Luis Lucena (14xx-15xx) and Ruy Lopez (1530-1580) are well known even
today.
Are there other Web sites that cover this period of chess history? I used
SurfWax at www.surfwax.com to search on 'Paolo Boi'. Not many relevant pages
popped out, but I did find:-
http://leoncini.freeservers.com/boi.html (Italian)
http://friuli.qnet.it/scacchi/manuale/storia.htm (Italian; another history
site) http://aurora.eexi.gr/~ippotis/proten.html
The last link is a list World Chess Champions, which includes a list of
'unofficial' champions. The list starts with the names:-
1560-1575 Lopez, Ruy
1575-1587 Cutri, Giovanni Leonardo
1587-1598 Boi, Paolo
1598-1621 Salvio, Alessandro
1621-1634 Greco, Gioacchino
1730-1747 De Kermeur, Legall
1747-1795 Philidor, Francois
1798-1824 Deschapelles, Alexandre
1824-1840 Bourdonnais, Louis de la
I only show the names up to the 1834 Labourdonnais - McDonnell matches, where
most chess historians start to agree on unofficial world champions. Many of
the first names are also on the list of great Italian players derived from
Alberti's site. By coincidence, I recently received an email from a
correspondent who offered a similar list of champions:-
1559-1575 Lopez de Segura, Ruy
1575-1598 Boi, Paolo
1598-1640 Salvio, Allesandro
1728-1755 de Kermeur, Sire Legall
1755-1795 Philidor, Francois Andre Danican
1795-1802 del Rio, Domenico Ercole
1802-1804 Verdoni
1804-1819 Sarratt, Jacob Henry
1819-1825 Lewis, William
1825-1834 de la Bourdonnais, Louis Mahe
While there are many similarities between the two lists, there are also
significant differences. The gaps on the first (1634-1730, 1795-1798) and
second (1640-1728) lists beg to be filled. It would be an interesting &
revealing exercise to match the names & dates against the historical record,
to fill the gaps, and to identify the controversial areas where chess
historians disagree.
I'll leave that as a future task.
Bye for now,
Mark Weeks
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