Macalda di Scaletta one of the earliest female chess players

Macalda di Scaletta was a Sicilian baroness in the 13th century who played chess and historical evidence suggests that she may have been the first person in Sicily who learned how to play it the game, Via Wikipedia

Macalda’s captivity allowed another of her unexpected qualities to be revealed, that of chess player: we know in fact that, during her imprisonment in the Matagrifone castle of Messina, Macalda entertained herself at the game of chess with the Emir of Djerba, Margam ibn Sebir, who was also held in prison after being captured fleeing to Tunis while trying to escape the naval incursion on the island of Djerba by the admiral Roger of Lauria.

Also in these encounters, the haughty Macalda did not fail to astonish the bystanders and her jailers with the sensation caused by her “vivacity and the immodesty of her garments” that she flaunted.

Historical evidence suggests that she was probably the first person in Sicily who learned how to play chess.[1] It would in fact take another two and a half centuries, until the time of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Habsburg, to have the first three historical mentions by Pietro Carrera of Sicilian chess players: the Palermitans Armini and Branci, and Don Matteoli Genchi of Termine, author of some stanzas on the rules of chess play.

Famous women in chess

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