the same rules as in the Orient, some innovations were introduced
by the European players in the later Middle Ages which proved to
be so great an improvement that within a hundred years they were
generally adopted in all countries including the Orient. The
reason for the changes was that in the old form of the game it
took too long to get through the opening period. The new form,
which dates from about 1500 A.D. and the characteristic feature
of which is the enlarged power of Queen and Bishop, is our modern
Chess, the rules of which are uniform throughout the civilized
world.

In the Seventeenth Century Chess flourished mostly in Italy,
which consequently produced the strongest players. Some of them
traveled throughout Europe, challenging the best players of the
other countries and for the most part emerging victorious. At
that time Chess was in high esteem, especially at the courts of
the kings who followed the example of Philip the Second of Spain
in honoring the traveling masters and rewarding them liberally
for their exhibition matches.

Towards the beginning of the Eighteenth Century the game reached
a high stage of development in France, England and Germany. The
most famous master of the time was the Frenchman, Andre Philidor,
who for more than forty years easily maintained his supremacy
over all players with whom he came in contact, and whose fame has
since been equaled only by the American Champion, Paul Morphy,
and by the German, Emanuel Lasker.

During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries the number of
players who obtained international fame increased rapidly, and in