Knight to encourage Virginia with the Italian back inside (9)
I believe the answer is:
chevalier
'knight' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'encourage virginia with the italian back inside' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'virginia' could be 'va' (US state abbreviation) and 'va' is present in the answer.
'italian' could be 'i' (abbreviation for Italian) and 'i' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
'to' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for chevalier that I've seen before include "courteous type" , "Knight, gallant" , "Old (French) "knight"" , "French actor and singer" , "novelist" .)