Representations of Power: Alfonso X, the Book of Games, and the Islamic Tradition

This dissertation uses a thirteenth-century manuscript, the Libro de los juegos, to uncover intellectual and cultural interactions between Christians and Muslims of Iberia, North Africa, and the Near East. While this work purports to be a game manual, collecting chess problems and other games, the Libro de los juegos is more than that. As one of the last Arabic-to-Castilian translation projects patronized by Alfonso X El Sabio of Castile-León (r. 1252-1284), a ruler who pursued “Solomonic,” or all-encompassing, wisdom, its historical context, lavish illuminations, and philosophical themes make it a notable source for interreligious discussions about free will, wise kingship, and court power. Alfonso’s other manuscripts have attracted scholarly attention for their borrowings from the Islamic tradition, but the Libro de los juegos has been largely ignored, perhaps because its genre is so complex. It draws upon Arabic chess treatises, contains illuminations of African Muslim men and women, and shares tales from the Islamic tradition of exotic Indian beasts and wise kings. All of these features work toward the representation of an intellectually powerful court—that of Alfonso X. This dissertation engages with ongoing discussions of Muslim-Christian relations by showing how one of the most important Christian kings in Europe often relied upon Islamic traditions in order to articulate his distinctive vision of good kingship and good living