Who invented the sicilian defence at chess and what year?
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves: 1. e4 c5 The Sicilian Defence was analyzed by Giulio Polerio in his 1594 manuscript on chess, though he did not use the term “Sicilian Defence.” It was later the subject of analyses by leading players of the day Alessandro Salvio (1604), Don Pietro Carrera (c. 1617), and Gioachino Greco (1623), and later Comte Carlo Francesco Cozio (c. 1740). The great French player and theoretician André Danican Philidor opined of the Sicilian in 1777, “This way of opening the game … is absolutely defensive, and very far from being the best … but it is a very good one to try the strength of an adversary with whose skill you are unacquainted.” In 1813, the English master Jacob Henry Sarratt effectively standardized his English translation of the name of this opening as “the Sicilian Defence,” referring to an old Italian manuscript that used the phrase, “il giocho siciliano” (“The Sicilian Game”). Hope that helps!
