St. Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European-established city in what is now the United States, was founded in 1565. In that very same decade, in Spain, a priest published the book that would make him the father of modern chess theory—and the king who paid for the fort on Florida’s coast was the same king who hung a golden rook around that priest’s neck. It is one of history’s quiet coincidences that the Spanish Crown was, in the same years, planting a garrison in the New World and crowning the man who gave the world the Ruy López. Here is how a Florida outpost and the most famous opening in chess share a single royal patron.
1565: A Spanish Outpost in Florida
On September 8, 1565, the admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés came ashore and founded St. Augustine, establishing the Spanish presence that would anchor Florida for generations. Menéndez sailed under a commission from King Philip II of Spain, then the most powerful monarch in Europe, whose empire stretched from the Americas to the Pacific. The little settlement would outlast every rival colony to become the oldest enduring city in the country—a story we tell in full in our guide to chess in St. Augustine.
1561: Spain Writes the Book on Chess
Four years before that landing, in 1561, a Spanish priest named Ruy López de Segura published Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del Axedrez—”Book of the Liberal Invention and Art of the Game of Chess.” It was one of the first true manuals of chess instruction, and in it López analyzed an opening that began 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5. That third move, bishop to b5, still bears his name today: the Ruy López, also called the Spanish Opening. His systematic approach to the game earned him a lasting title—the father of modern chess theory.
One King, Two Legacies
Here is where the threads cross. Ruy López was no obscure parish priest; he was a favorite at the court of Philip II—the same king who commissioned the founding of St. Augustine. López played before the king, and Philip was impressed enough to reward him with a benefice and a remarkable token: a golden chain bearing a small gold rook, to be worn around his neck. Sit with that for a moment. In the same decade, from the same crown, came two legacies that could hardly seem more different—a stone fort guarding a Florida inlet, and a gold chess rook hung on the father of chess theory. Same king, same years, two enduring monuments to Spanish ambition.
The Spanish Opening, Move by Move
The opening López analyzed remains, four and a half centuries later, one of the most respected ways to begin a game of chess—played at every level from the local club to the World Championship. Click through the moves below to see the main line of the Ruy López unfold. White’s bishop pins the knight defending Black’s center, and both sides develop toward one of the richest battlegrounds in all of chess.
If the notation above looks unfamiliar, our guide to reading chess notation will get you up to speed, and our opening principles for beginners explains the ideas—control the center, develop quickly, castle early—that the Ruy López embodies so well.
Play a Piece of History
There is something fitting about playing the Spanish Opening in the nation’s oldest Spanish city. Whether you are just learning the moves with our complete beginner’s guide to chess or you want to try the Ruy López yourself right now, you can start a game on our Play Chess page. And when you want to see how the masters wielded openings like this one, replay the classics in our collection of famous chess games to study.
Bring a piece of St. Augustine’s chess heritage home from the St. Augustine Chess shop.