George Duke wrote on Thu, Dec 2, 2010 04:45 PM UTC:
The rules of Chess by Rabelais(1494-1553) are in Chapter 24 of Book V:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/r/rabelais/francois/r11g/book5.24.html,
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Book?ChapterXXIV.
King must be local rules. Contemporary is Copernicus(1473-1543). North and South American indigenous population in 1492 was 125 million, the same as Europe then, at the beginning of European expansionism. Year 1496 in Spain has publication of Lucena's(1465-1530) 'Repeticion de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez', the same Chess of Italian term regina rabiosa, and described by Rabelais about 1540, originated and spread no earlier than 1490s.
Two prior comment leads:
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=26827,
http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=26823.
