Very interesting. 
Seduction via Chess in Palazzo Davanzati, Florence. Chastelaine de Vergy [Donna del Vergiu]
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kamalakanta wrote:
Italians.....great pasta and cars, but lousy dramas!
and really bad with sharing their legacy! The manuscripts of the Italian libraries are maybe of the most difficult to find digitized online
glad you've enjoyed it tzimakos!
@kamalakanta maybe the drama element this time was placed by the French in the first version of the poem. The Chatelaine story is said to be based, by many authors, on a story written by Marie de France, under the title Lais of Lanval, where a more or less similar story occurs in King Arthur's court, but there with a happy ending.
good research - Congratulations
The following reminded me somehow, besides of course the pure use of chess as a symbol, a possible slight inkling of medieval chess demonization, mentioned in a previous blog.
The photos are taken from the bedroom of Palazzo Davanzati in Florence. The Palazzo was built in the second half of the 14th century for the Davizzi family, members of the greater Guild of Cloth Trade in Florence [Arte di Calimala]. Davanzatis, who gave their name to Palazzo, bought it during the 16th century. Around the walls of this bedroom one can see illustrations of scenes of the italian version of Chastelaine de Vergy [Donna del Vergiu]. [photo collection in wikicommons].
La Chastelaine de Vergy is an anonymous old-French poem of the 13th century, surely completed since 1288.
"Let us briefly review the story. The chatelaine de Vergi has accorded her love to a handsome Burgundian knight, one of the most illustrious retainers of her uncle, the duke, on the condition that the knight not reveal their love. To expedite their rendezvous and maintain secrecy they use a little dog as their all-clear signal. The duchess, also enamored of the knight, seeks his love, only to be refused. Out of anger she accuses the knight of treason, in private to her husband, telling the duke that the knight has betrayed him by seeking her love. The duke confronts the knight and promises to exonerate him only on the condition that the knight prove he loves someone other than the duchess. Swearing the duke to secrecy, the knight tells of his affair with the chatelaine de Vergi and proves the veracity of his story by allowing the duke to shadow him when he is “summoned” by the dog that night. The duchess, determined to find out why her accusation is no longer believed, makes up to the duke the following night in bed. Swearing secrecy on pain of death, the duchess succeeds in drawing the knight's secret out of her husband. At the feast of Pentecost the duchess makes a point of referring to the strategem of the dog in the presence of the chatelaine de Vergi and the other ladies of the court. The chatelaine, recognizing that she has been betrayed, rushes into a garderobe where she promptly swoons and dies. The knight, missing her at the ball, searches for her. A maiden who happens to have been in the sleeping chamber and to have witnessed the chatelaine’s death, explains the situation to the knight who thereupon kills himself with a sword. When the maiden subsequently repeats her tale to the duke, the duke strikes the duchess dead with the same sword used by the knight, then explains to the shocked court the events which have led up to and brought about her death." [from The Untellable Story by Laurence de Looze in The French Review Vol. 59, No. 1 (Oct., 1985), pp. 42-50, in https://www.jstor.org/stable/394199]
Two more things on the story's plot. Duke due to his grief became a Knight Templar after these events. And there's no chess reference on this first old-French version.
The story became popular and was translated in Italian, under the title La Donna del Vergiu or Dama del Verzu, beloved in Florence. This Italian poem is said that maybe, with much doubt, was made by Antonio Pucci, a Florentine poet of 14th century. One of the earliest manuscripts of the Italian version is the so called Codex Riccardiana 2733, said to be of 15th century, but I couldn't find any copy. Anyway...
In this Italian version the same story is narrated, but with some little differences [or just additions]... One of them [to be honest haven't checked in depth the others] is on the scene where the Duchess tries to seduce the Knight and the Knight refuses, in the beginnings of the story. This try was made while they were playing chess, after a Duchess' invitation....
XVII
Un giorno er’ito el duca a suo diletto
fuor della terra a un suo ricco palazzo,
e la duchessa sanza ignun sospetto
prese messer Guglielmo per lo brazzo
e menosselo in zambra a lato al letto,
ragionandosi insieme con sollazzo;
e, per giucar, la donna e ‘l cavaliere
fece venir gli scacchi e lo scacchiere.
XVIII
Da poi ch’egli ebbon tre giuochi giuocato,
la duchessa, ch’Amor sovente sprona,
disse: – Messere, avete disiato
già gran tempo d’avere mia persona;
or prendete di me ciò che v’è a grato. –
Ed abbracciandol gli baciò la gola,
poi gli baciò ben cento volte il viso,
prima che ‘l suo dal suo fosse diviso.
It is my feeling that the dating of the poem is attached somehow with the dating of the previous illustrations of Palazzo [said to be c. 1395], but not sure. This as my first intention was to track who placed chess as a symbol in the story. But surely unsuccessfully. However it must be said that the same story is remembered, somehow related with chess, in The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio of 14th century [3rd day-conclusion]:
Dioneo and Fiammetta fell a singing of Messer Guglielmo and the lady of Vergiù. Filomena and Pamfilo sat them down to a game of chess and, as thus they pursued each their several diversions, time sped so swiftly that the supper-hour stole upon them almost unawares: whereupon they ranged the tables round the beautiful fountain, and supped with all glad and festal cheer. in here