[6] In 1544, however, the diocese and the entire marquisate of Monseratto were occupied by the armies of Francis I of France, as part of his long war with the Spanish, and the Bishop was forced to retreat to his benefices in Cremona.

[8] In 1549 and 1550 he became involved in a controversy between his native Cremona and the city of Pavia, helping to prepare the brief for his fellow citizens to be argued before the Spanish governor of Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga.

Murray, Vida's poem about Chess, "attained a great popularity in the 16th c.: it was repeatedly printed, and translations or imitations exist in most of the European languages.

"[12] Murray continues, "In the opening lines, Vida tells how he has written this poem, on a subject never before attempted by the poets, at the insistence of Federigo Fregoso, and he expresses the hope that it might afford some relaxation to Guiliano de Medici in the heavy task which he and his brother (Giovanni, later Pope Leo X, a keen chess-player), had undertaken in repelling the French invaders of Italy.

The aim of the poem is to describe in Virgilian Latin a game of chess played between Apollo and Mercury in the presence of the other gods.

All three terms - Archer for the Bishop, Elephant and Tower (Castle) for the Rook - were adopted by players in different parts of Western Europe.

Furthermore, according to Kirkconnell, Vida's, "description of the Council in Hell, addressed by Lucifer, in Book I", was, "a feature later to be copied", by Torquato Tasso, Abraham Cowley, and by John Milton in Paradise Lost.

The standard English translations, which render Vida's poem into heroic couplets, were published by John Cranwell in 1768 and by Edward Granan in 1771.