Palla

For the article of ancient Roman clothing, see Palla (garment).
Palla, Italian language for ball, is the name of various traditional ball games of Italy. In Italian they also call pallacanestro for basketball, pallavolo for volleyball, pallamano for handball and pallanuoto for water polo.

Games
Palla eh!
Palla eh! is an old Tuscan ball game from Maremma towns between Siena and Grosseto.  It has this name because players call out eh! before serving.

Small hand-made balls contain a lead pellet wrapped 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: every team include 3, 4 or 5 athletes. 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 identical to that of tennis: 15-30-40-game.

Palla 21
In a variant called palla 21 scoring is 7-14-21 or game. In this form they use a rubber or plastic ball of 35-40 grams. Firstly a palla 21 tournament was played in Chicago during 2007 with Italian national team.

Palla elastica
Palla elastica is a team game: every team include 5 athletes who catch a rubber ball,  similar to tennis ball, with either a bare hand. The team which wins 11 games is final winner of the match: each game consists of 4 points. Registered players of official championships dispute their matches in a kind of stadium, 75 metres long with lateral wall, named sferisterio or sferodromo in Italian language.

Pallamuro
Pallamuro is Italian name of American handball.

Palla prigioniera
Palla prigioniera is Italian name of prisoner ball.

Pallacorda
Pallacorda or palla della corda is the Italian name of ancient form of real tennis where a cord of rope was strung across the street and players used hands, racket or tamburello alias tambourine in English language. Pisa, Prato, Rome, Siena, and various Tuscan towns still have streets named via Pallacorda or via Della Corda.

Pallamaglio
Pallamaglio is an other ancient game called pall mall in English language and his modern form named skittles is played in England, Germany, Austria and Switzerland currently.

Pallina
Pallina means small ball and it is a team game: every team include 4, 5 or 6 athletes who catch a rubber ball, of almost 50 grams, with either a bare hand.

Related pages
 Pallone
 Tamburello

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.  or .
 McNicoll, Kathryn (2005). Real Tennis, pp. 21–22.  Buckinghamshire: Shire Publications. .
 Whitman, Malcolm D. (1932). Tennis: Origins and Mysteries, p. 85.  Mineola, NY: Dover Publications (2004 reprint). .

Category:Sport in Italy