Italian Game chess art

The Italian Game, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4, points the light-squared bishop straight at f7, the weakest square in Black's camp. It is among the oldest openings in the written record, studied by the Italian masters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries whose names it still carries.

It branches into two temperaments. The Giuoco Piano, the "quiet game," is anything but quiet at the top level, where a slow buildup with c3 and d4 can detonate. The Evans Gambit, where White throws in b4 to gain time and a roaring initiative, is one of the great romantic gambits and the home of the Evergreen Game.

The Italian rewards clean, principled development and a willingness to play for the initiative early. As art it suits the player who loves the classical opening principles and the games of the nineteenth-century masters who perfected them.