LUIS RAMIREZ LUCENA

LUIS RAMIREZ LUCENA was born about one thousand four hundred and sixty-five years old, somewhere in Aragon (Spain). He was one of the first known strong chess players who played chess according to modern rules. He is also the author of the first book on chess, published in Salamanca (Spain), according to historians, around the end of the XV century. This book, "The Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess", was intended for Prince Juan ( most likely, this is the son of the Spanish king Ferdinand, who died in 1497) and contains the rules of the game of chess, as well as an analysis of eleven openings. These openings are the French defense, the Spanish party, the Philidor defense, the Italian party, the Elephant's debut, P, the debut of 1. b3 and 1. e3, as well as one hundred and fifty tasks that Lucena collected during a trip to Europe. Historians learned about the existence of this chess manual only at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Today, Lucena's name is mainly associated with one of the fundamental positions of the rook endgame (Lucena's Position), but it is not analyzed and is not even mentioned in his book. It is believed that Lucena came from a Jewish family that converted to Christianity. His father Juan de Lucena was an ambassador of King Ferdinand of Aragon, as a result of which the young Louis traveled a lot in France and Italy. The situation of their family worsened with the beginning of the Inquisition in Spain in 1492, when most Jews and Arabs were burned at the stake or expelled from Spain. This contributed to the spread of chess throughout Europe, since these peoples were originally carriers of the cultural tradition of chess. It is believed that after 1515 Lucena was forced to emigrate from Spain and spent the rest of his days in Bologna (France).
Lucena died around 1530.