Palla (Italian for ball) is a traditional Tuscan ball game played in towns between Siena and Grosseto. It is also called pallaeh! (or palla EH!) because players call out eh! before serving.
Small hand-made balls contain a lead pellet wrapt in rubber and wool with a leather cover. The game is played by facing teams who strike (not catch) the ball with either a bare or gloved hand. Courts are marked out with painted lines on town streets, but there is no net, and players can move between sides. Adjacent buildings, objects, and sometimes spectators, are considered "in play." Play does stop for oncoming automobiles. Similar to real tennis, a second bounce can result in a "chase" rather than an outright point, marked in chalk where the ball stops rolling.
In one version of palla, scoring is that of tennis (15-30-40-game). In a variant sometimes called pallaventuno (meaning ball-21) scoring is 7-14-21. Pallacorda is an extinct form of the game where a cord was strung across the street to keep players on their respective sides of the court. Pisa, Prato , Rome, and Siena still have streets named Pallacorda.
See also
References
- Morgan, Roger (1989). "European Derivatives of Tennis" in The Royal Game, L. St J. Butler & P. J. Wordie, ed. Stirling: Falkland Palace Real Tennis Club. ISBN 0-9514622-0-2 or ISBN 0-9514622-1-0.
