Arulanandam, Grace Ann2026-05-142026-05-142026https://hdl.handle.net/2144/52938Today, chess is ubiquitous and is not particularly associated with one culture or history. Chess originated in India before 850 Common Era. From India, it spread first to Persia before being introduced to Europe, most likely to Spain and Italy first, around the year 1000. Chess historians have argued that by the end of the 15th and into the 16th century, over 500 years after chess’s European introduction, chess was considered European, and any trace of its foreign identity was lost. Yet a close reading of Early Modern Italian chess literature and art reveals that artists and authors conceptualized an imagined foreign identity of chess. Throughout this paper, I will use the terms foreign and familiar rather than the weighted terms exotic, oriental, and strange. While I admit that foreign and familiar are not perfect, I am using them specifically to complicate our understanding of what was familiar to an early modern Italian audience. With the introduction of chess in Europe, the game began as a foreign object, became familiar in the Medieval era, and then re-engaged with a foreign identity. By analyzing the evolution of chess literature and art, with particular interest in Sofonisba Anguissola’s The Game of Chess, I argue that chess had a multilayered identity in the early modern period.en-USOther