Paolo Boi (1528–1598) was an Italian

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

player. He is considered to have been one of the greatest chess players of the 16th century. In 1549, he beat Pope Paul III in a chess match.

Early life

He was born in Syracuse, Sicily (now Italy), and he was brought up for the church under the belief that Paolo would become a pope and a saint, because of a prediction. However, Paolo formed different plans: he started to learn chess, and a few years later he escaped to

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

, then to

Saragossa Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributar ...

, and finally returned to

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

as a well-known chess player.

Career

Luigi Mussini- Leonardo da Cutro e Ruy Lopez giocano a scacchi alla corte di Spagna

He had played several times against

Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona Giovanni Leonardo di Bona or Giovanni Leonardo da Cutri (both given names can be seen also in the reversed order Leonardo Giovanni), known as Il Puttino ( it, Small Child) (1542–1597), was an early Italian chess master. Giovanni Leonardo was ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, and the two chess players were considered equal. Then Paolo Boi and Giovanni Leonardo Di Bona defeated the strongest chess player of their time, the famous Spanish player

Ruy López de Segura Rodrigo "Ruy" López de Segura (c. 1530 – c. 1580) was a Spanish chess player, author, and Catholic priest whose 1561 treatise '' Libro de la invención liberal y Arte del juego del Axedrez'' was one of the first books about modern chess in ...

, at the first known international

Chess tournament A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London 1851 chess tournament, London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard ...

in the court of Philip II of Spain at

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

, in 1575. As a result, they became the strongest chess players of the era, and henceforth the two were called the "Light" and "Lustre" of the noble game. The chess treatises created by Boi were not preserved. A small number of his chess games have survived to the present time, such as the opening of his game against the chess player Scovara, which gained fame, but only the first fourteen moves have survived. He was the first who, without seeing the board, played three games at once, and at the same time conversed with other parties upon different topics. In France,

Catherine de Medici Catherine de' Medici ( it, Caterina de' Medici, ; french: Catherine de Médicis, ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Florentine noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King H ...

, who was also adept at chess, showered favours upon him; and, in Portugal, he had the honour of having the King Don Sebastian for his adversary.

Death

Boi died in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

. Historian

H. J. R. Murray Harold James Ruthven Murray (24 June 1868 – 16 May 1955) was a British educationalist, inspector of schools, and prominent chess historian. His book, ''A History of Chess'', is widely regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive his ...

says he was poisoned by jealous rivals. Other sources say he caught a cold when hunting and died as a result of it. His body was buried in the church of Saint Francisco di Paolo; Prince Stigliano and many of the Neapolitan nobility followed him to the grave.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boi, Paolo 1528 births 1598 deaths Italian chess players 16th century in chess People from Syracuse, Sicily Sportspeople from the Province of Syracuse