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Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Fri, May 31, 2024 06:37 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 03:18 PM:

On rocca/fortress.

First Forbes is not a reliable historian, I believe that is well known, I don't need to develop.

Then the photos I have shown on my website are NOT demonstrating that these German, Dutch or English pieces have taken this form of a tower because an influence of an Italian word for fortress.

If you look Murray's p422n18 you will see that "rocca" is attested in Italy only on the 17th c. Before, we have rocco, pl. rocchi, rocho, roccho, roco, rrocho,and many other forms in Latin, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Provençal (=Occitan), French, English, etc. So, in the most all the case, that piece was designated as a "rock". Obviously by phonetic resemblence with Arabic "rukh", mostly through Latin "rochus".

Murray (p772) says the modern form of the Rook as a tower appears first in Damiano in the 16th c. There are two reasons leading to imagine that piece as a tower: 1) the evolution of the abstract shape prevailing at that time, a sort of V, becoming a sort of Y. 2) having 4 pieces named "rock" at the 4 corners of the chessboard were suggesting the 4 towers at the corner of a castle. Naturally, a tower became one, but not the only one, physical representation of that piece. Later, players started to name that piece Torre, Tour, Turm, Torren, in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Holland, etc.


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