Ruy López de Segura Ruy López de Segura Rodrigo (Ruy) López de Segura (c. 1530 – c. 1580) was a Spanish priest and later bishop in Segura whose 1561 book "Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del Axedrez" was one of the first definitive books about modern chess in Europe, preceded only by Pedro Damiano's 1512 book, Luis Ramírez de Lucena's 1497 book (the oldest surviving printed book on chess), and the Göttingen manuscript (authorship and exact date of the manuscript are unknown). He was born in Zafra near Badajoz, and he studied and lived in Salamanca. In 1560 he won
Ruy López de Dávalos 18-year-old king Charles, born in Ghent, Flanders, an aspiring, and successful, Holy Roman Emperor. A few male descendants of the family emigrated earlier to Italy, including Malta island, around 1430 and became there important people of the nobility for over 400 years or so, using names approaching the Spanish spelling of the name, but no necessarily with the same exact graphical signs. The genealogical descent is as follows: 1. Ruy Lopez d'Avalos, Count of Ribadeo, Constable of Castile (1357–1421), married firstly to Maria Gutierrez de Fontechecha; secondly 1395 to Elvira de Guevara; married thirdly to Constanza de Tovar y Toledo,