Accademia Scacchistica Don Pietro Carrera

A school with several entry points

Federazione Scacchistica Italiana (FSI), Italy’s national chess federation, lists the school at levels 1, 2 and 3. The academy’s mix of group teaching, individual work and competition preparation gives practical meaning to that progression.

Its pathway also reaches local schools. In 2024/25, Istituto G.

Falcone in Aci Castello worked with the academy on beginner, intermediate and advanced groups; in May 2026 the academy reported that seven school teams, from primary through upper secondary education, were affiliated to Don Pietro Carrera and coached by its instructors.

Why Pietro Carrera is in the name

Pietro Carrera’s Il gioco de gli scacchi was printed in Militello in Val di Catania in 1617. The modern academy uses his name as a reference to the area’s intellectual chess tradition, not as a claim of uninterrupted institutional continuity from the seventeenth century.

The historical reference also entered public programming. For the four-hundredth anniversary of the book’s printing, a simultaneous display organized by the academy was announced in Militello for 7 August 2017.

Public chess and Serie Master

Etna Comics’ programme for 2 June 2026 assigned supervised casual play and a simultaneous display to the academy. The programme shows the academy planning chess activity beyond the club room, inside Catania’s pop-culture festival.

That same year, the first team won its Serie A1 group and earned promotion to Serie Master for 2027, returning after three years to the top division of Italy’s national club team championship. National competition therefore sits alongside, rather than replacing, the teaching network built through the club and local schools.