Karpova: In connection with Italian chess Alessandro Nizzola's article "Italian Chess 1560-1880" is very important.
Link: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skitt...
Italian chess had special rules at that time and this only stopped in 1880. So many games from Italian masters from 1560 to 1880 are not fully comparable to modern chessgames (you'll see what I mean if you have a look at Sarratt's book in my previous post).
Nizzola on the special rules:
Free castling:
<In Italy, castling was freer and more limited at the same time. The King and
Rook, after jumping over each other, could go to any square up to and
including the other’s starting point, provided an enemy piece was not
attacked by either piece. For instance, King’s side castling for White would allow the following six options: 1. Kh1-Re1, 2. Kh1-Rf1, 3. Kh1-Rg1 (not always a good solution with a Black Knight in g4!), 4. Kg1-Re1, 5. Kg1-Rf1
(not very popular among Italians), and 6. Kf1-Re1. Depriving one’s
opponent of castling was a substantial advantage, named vantaggio dell’
arroccamento.>
Passing by:
<Italian Pawns, when not sacrificing themselves in the first moves to open
lines for their pieces, had an opposite tendency towards self-preservation.
Cristopher Becker translated the Italian term passar battaglia as passing by the battle, while David Hooper and Ken Whyld in their Oxford Companion to Chess opted for dodging the fight. My compatriots, probably in
accordance with medieval tradition, did not allow the en passant capture.
The Pawn using its privilege of moving two squares from, let’s say, d7 to d5
on its first move was allowed to “evade combat” at d6 on its way to d5.>
Suspended pawns:
<In Italy, Pawn promotion was only to a piece already captured by the
opponent, and it wasn’t possible for a player to have two Bishops of the
same square color. If a Pawn reached the eighth rank before any piece of its
color had been captured, it had to wait there “suspended” until a piece was captured, at which time the promotion was possible. Then a move was
made, either with the new piece or with another. Moving the new piece
didn’t find acceptance in every part of Italy according to Adriano Chicco,
but Ponziani and del Rio allowed it in their books.>
Kibitzing
