Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/88

 66 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 S.X.JAN. 28, 1922. I may be allowed to give a few extracts from the account, which occupies nearly four pages. One of -the various kinds of the old Roman game of Pila still survives under the modern name of Pallone. It is played between two sides, each numbering from five to eight persons. Each of the players is armed with a bracciale, or gauntlet of wood, covering the hand and extending nearly up to the elbow, with which a heavy ball is beaten backwards and forwards, high into the air, from one side to the other. The object of the game is to keep the ball in constant flight, and whoever suffers it to fall dead within his bounds loses. It may, however, be struck in its first rebound, though the best strokes are before it touches the ground. The gauntlets are hollow tubes of wood, thickly studded outside with pointed bosses, projecting an inch and a half, and having inside, across the end, a transverse bar, which is grasped by the hand, so as to render them manageable to the wearer. The balls, which are of the size of a large cricket-ball, are made of leather, and so heavy, that, when well played, they are capable of breaking the arm unless properly received on the gauntlet. They are inflated with air, which is pumped into them with a long syringe, through a small aperture closed by a valve inside. The game is played on an oblong figure marked out on the ground, or designated by the wall around the* sunken platform on which it is played ; and across the centre is drawn a transverse line, dividing equally the two sides. Whenever a ball either falls outside the lateral boundary, or is not struck over the central line, it counts against the party playing it. When it flies over the extreme limits it is called a volata, and is reckoned the best stroke that can be made. At the end of the lists is a spring-board, on which the principal player stands. The points of the game are fifty, the first two strokes counting fifteen each, and the others ten each. When one side makes the fifty before the other has made anything, it is called a marcio, and counts double. When both parties count forty, the caller cries out " alle due," and the count is carried back on both sides to thirty. . . . As each point is made, it is shouted by the caller, who stands in the middle and keeps the count, and proclaims the bets of the spectators ; and after each game " si passa " or an " over " is taken, the two sides changing position. This game is as national to the Italians as cricket to the English ; it is not only, as it seems to me, much more interesting than the latter, but requires vastly more strength, agilty, and dexterity, to play it well. Story cites some of the places where it is' or now perhaps was- played : Rome, near the summit of the Quattro Fontane, in the Barberini grounds ; the Piazza di Termini ; the Tempio della Pace ; the Colosseo (at the first the strict game, apparently played by professionals ; the others a less strict game) Florence, outside the Porta a Pinti- Siena, under the for- tress wall. Story gives the inscription under the bust of a famous player in the walls of the amphi- theatre at Florence : Josephus Barnius, Petiolensis, vir in jactando repercutiendoque folle singularis, qui ob robur ingens maximamque artis peritiam, et collusores ubique deyictos, Terrsemotus formidabili cog- nomento dictus est. No date is given. The amphitheatre means, I believe, the court where Pallone is played. The season for the game appears to be or to have been after the middle of May, through the summer. Other games, described in the same chapter (vi.), are Morra, Pillotta, Bocce or Boccette, and Ruzzola. ROBERT PIEBPOINT. PRINCIPAL LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES, TAVERNS, AND INNS IN THE . EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (See 12 S. vi. and vii. passim ; ix. 85, 105, 143, 186, 226, 286, 306, 385, 426, 504, 525 ; x. 26.) (An asterisk denotes that the house still exists as a tavern, inn or public-house in many cases rebuilt.) Temple Punch House Thatched House. , Thatched House .. Thavies Inn Coffee House Theatre Thistle and Crown. . Three Blackbirds. . Three Chairmen Three Chairs Three Colts Near Hare Court, Temple. . 1744 Strand Islington 1744 Thavies Inn, Holborn Bridges Street, Covent Garden 1739 Swallow Street .. .. .. 1755 Low Leyton. . . . . . Hay Hill South-west corner of Russell 1711 Street and of the Little Piazza Bevis Marks, south side. . 1708 General Advertiser, March 15. London Museum : sketch by J. T. Wilson (A22123). Levander, A.Q.C., vol. xxix., 1916. Hogarth's ' Four Stages of Cruelty,' plate 2. Simpson's ' Suburban Taverns,' p. 46. Lane's ' Handy Book,' p. 190. London Museum : sketch by J. T. Wilson (A22038). Thornbury, iv. 333. Plan of Covent Garden published by J. T. Smith in 1809. Larwood, p. 358. New View of London,' i 82.