The Museum of games of Alfonzo X and educational laboratory of medieval games is located in Ficarra Italy. Chessboards, court games and street games take the visitor back to the origins of medieval games, stimulating the imagination for a journey back in time. Located in seven rooms of the ancient prison fortress, it constitutes a unique cross-section of the time in memory of the noblewoman and leader Macalda Scaletta, Baroness of Ficarra.
Macalda di Scaletta (or Machalda) ( c. 1240 – 1308) was a Sicilian baroness and lady-in-waiting during the Angevin and Aragonese periods. The daughter of Giovanni di Scaletta and a Sicilian noblewoman, Macalda was noted for her unscrupulous political conduct, inclination to betray marriages, and for her promiscuous sexual habits; even having a been accused of incest, exhibitionism, and nymphomania”. She was the wife of the Grand Justicar of the Kingdom of Sicily, Alaimo da Lentini. Macalda is noted for her ability to play chess, unusual for a woman of her time and historical evidence suggests that she was probably the first person in Sicily who learned how to play it.
Medieval People at Play 
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