Baldasarre Embriachi of Florence Italy is credited with one of the earliest upright designs of chess pieces using a lathe. The king and vizier (later known as a queen) are virtually identical except in height and station. Their standard bearers (aka: bishops) are depicted as shields. There are no original knights that have survived but experts agree that a stylized horse's head (similar to our Novograd knights) or possibly a cut aslope was used. We decided on the latter due to the prominent Islamic influence of the pieces. The rook evolved from a chariot to a flowery representation of possibly a bird, the mythological Roc.

The Roc legend is based on an extinct elephant bird up to 10 feet in height and weighing 1,000 pounds. It is possible that early use of an elephant in the rook's position was reminiscent of the Rock's prey since legend says that it carried off these and other pachyderms.

We chose to use bone for our pieces. We have tried to stay true to the prince of carver's proportions and vision although our pieces are definitely of a larger scale. We are extremely proud to recreate this extraordinary example of workmanship in the history of chess.

Our king is a full 4 inches (10 cm) with a base diameter of 1.1 inches (2.75 cm); the pawns are 1.2 inches (3 cm) tall with proportional size bases.
The pieces will be accompanied by our very own majestic boards(as shown in pictures) a 17 inch board with 1.4 inch squares is the perfect match for this wonderful set.