Jeu de mail or jeu de maille ('pallamaglio' in Italian, Middle French for 'mallet game', or sometimes interpreted as 'straw game') is an ancient outdoor game, originally from Naples , which gave rise to numerous modern sports, such as golf , croquet , hockey and its variations, and polo . It is a now-obsolete lawn game originating in the Late Middle Ages and mostly played in the Kingdom of Naples and France, surviving in some locales into the 20th century. It is a form of ground billiards , using one or more balls , a stick with a mallet -like head, and usually featuring one or more targets such as hoops or holes. Jeu de mail was ancestral to the games golf , palle-malle and croquet , and (by moving it indoors and playing on a table with smaller equipment), billiards .
17-511: One of the oldest references to the game of 'pallamaglio', and to its Neapolitan origin, is by Anton Francesco Grazzini , also known as Lasca. The game is also mentioned in a list of Neapolitan popular games in Giordano Bruno 's comedy The Candlestick (1582). The game was probably already played in the Kingdom of Naples in the twelfth century. One of the first known written record of jeu de mail
34-508: A pseudonym which is still frequently substituted for his proper name. Grazzini was temperamental, his life consequently enlivened or disturbed by various literary quarrels. His Umidi brethren expelled him for a time, because of his ruthless criticism of the Arameans, a party of academicians who maintained that the Florentine language was derived from Hebrew , Aramaic , or some other branch of
51-577: A consonant, [ɸ] if preceded by a vowel as in [la ɸiːɸa] la pipa 'the pipe' and [pp] (also transcribed [pː] ) in [tre pˈpiːɸe] tre pipe 'three pipes'. Parallel alternations of the affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are also typical of Florentine but by no means confined to it or even to Tuscan. The word gelato is pronounced with [dʒ] following a pause or a consonant, [ʒ] following a vowel and [ddʒ] if raddoppiamento applies ( [dʒeˈlaːθo] , [un dʒeˈlaːθo] un gelato , [ˈkwattro ʒeˈlaːθi] quattro gelati , [ˈtre ddʒeˈlaːθi] tre gelati . Similarly,
68-454: A consonant-weakening rule widespread in Tuscany in which the voiceless plosive phonemes /k/ , /t/ , /p/ are pronounced between vowels as fricatives [h] , [θ] , [ɸ] respectively. The sequence /la kasa/ la casa 'the house', for example, is pronounced [la ˈhaːsa] , and /buko/ buco 'hole' is realized as [ˈbuːho] . Preceded by a pause or a consonant, /k/ is produced as [k] (as in
85-725: A manuscript of the 16th century in the Comunale of Perugia; and in 1870 a small collection of those poems which have been left unpublished by previous editors appeared at Poggibonsi, Alcune poesie inedite . Florentine language The Florentine dialect or vernacular ( dialetto fiorentino or vernacolo fiorentino ) is a variety of Tuscan , a Romance language spoken in the Italian city of Florence and its immediate surroundings. A received pedagogical variant derived from it historically, once called la pronuncia fiorentina emendata (literally, 'the amended Florentine pronunciation'),
102-402: A second prestige language alongside Latin and was used as such for centuries. Florentine, and Tuscan more generally, can be distinguished from Standard Italian by differences in numerous features at all levels: phonology , morphology , syntax and lexicon . Perhaps the difference most noticed by Italians and foreigners alike is known as the gorgia toscana (literally 'Tuscan throat'),
119-522: A youth; and owned the then famous Farmacia del Moro near the Cathedral. In 1540 he was among the founders of the Accademia degli Umidi, which was soon renamed Accademia Fiorentina . He later took a leading role in the establishment of the more famous Accademia della Crusca , which published his Vocabulario of words accepted as the purest Italian . To both societies he was known as Il Lasca or Leuciscus ,
136-474: Is a Renaissance Latin text dating to 1416. The mail in the name probably means ' maul , mallet ', from Latin malleus . An alternative meaning of 'straw' has been suggested ( Modern French maille ), on the basis that the target hoops used in some versions of the game were sometimes made of bound straw. Quite popular in various forms in the Kingdom of Naples, then in other parts of Italy and France in
153-426: Is struck with a long stick with a mallet- or foot -like end, similar to a croquet mallet or golf club , respectively; it is essentially a heavy version of the billiard mace (which eventually developed into the cue stick ). Different variants of the game may have differing goals or targets (if any), ranging from croquet-like hoops to golf-like holes in the ground. There are four known named rules variations of
170-554: The Late Middle Ages and Renaissance , the game developed into pall-mall in the early modern period , which spread to Scotland then England ; this, in turn, eventually led to croquet . According to Brantôme , King Henry II of France (ruled 1547–1559) was an excellent player of jeu de mail and jeu de paume (a form of handball that eventually developed into tennis and other racquet sports ). Louis XIV (ruled 1661–1715), who hated jeu de paume ,
187-500: The Semitic. He was readmitted in 1566, when his friend Salviati was consul. II Lasca ranks as one of the great masters of Tuscan prose. His style is flexible and abundantly idiomatic, but without affectation. It has the force and freshness of popular speech, whilst retaining a flavour of academic culture. A number of miscellaneous poems, a few letters and Four Orations to the Cross complete
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#1732854576152204-522: The game: Antonio Francesco Grazzini Antonio Francesco Grazzini or Antonfrancisco Grazzini (March 22, 1503 – February 18, 1584) was an Italian author. He was born at Florence or in Staggia Senese (he wrote of himself: Io sono a Staggia, ch'è la patria mia, e de' miei primi l'antica magione… ) of a good family, but there is no record of his upbringing and education. He probably began to practise as an apothecary as
221-537: The initial consonant of /ˈtʃena/ cena 'dinner' has three phonetic forms, [tʃ] , [ʃ] and [ttʃ] . In both cases, the weakest variant appears between vowels ( [reˈʒoːne] regione 'region', [ˈkwattro ʒeˈlaːθi] quattro gelati ; [la ˈʃeːna] la cena , [ˈbaːʃo] bacio 'kiss'). Florentine uses the diminutive case -ino/-ine far more than Italian does, with many surnames also ending in -ini. Florentine often abbreviates its articles and pronouns . The Florentine dialect has several unique phrases as compared
238-403: The list of Grazzini's works. He also edited the works of Francesco Berni , and collected Tutti I trionfi, larri, mascherate o canti carnascialeschi, andati per Firenze dal tempo del Magnifico Lorenzo vecchio de 'Medici fino all'anno 1559 (the latter influenced Goethe 's " Faust "). In 1868 Adamo Rossi published in his Ricerche per le biblioteche di Perugia three novelle by Grazzini, from
255-411: The word casa alone or in the phrase in casa ). Similar alternations obtain for /t/ → [t] , [θ] and /p/ → [p] , [ɸ] . Strengthening to a geminate consonant occurs when the preceding word triggers syntactic doubling ( raddoppiamento fonosintattico ) so the initial consonant /p/ of pipa 'pipe (for smoking)' has three phonetic forms: [p] in [ˈpiːɸa] spoken as a single word or following
272-483: Was officially prescribed as the national language of the Kingdom of Italy , when it was established in 1861. It is the most widely spoken of the Tuscan dialects. Important writers such as Dante Alighieri , Francesco Petrarch , Giovanni Boccaccio and, later, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini wrote in literary Tuscan/Florentine, perhaps the best-known example being Dante's Divine Comedy . It became
289-686: Was on the other hand enthusiastic about jeu de mail , and the playing court in the gardens of Tuileries Palace was enlarged during his reign. The game was still played in France, in the areas of Montpellier and Aix-en-Provence , into the early 20th century, before the First World War . An educational institution in Montpellier, Collège Jeu de Mail , still bears the name of this game. The game makes use of one or more balls that are generally of boxwood , but higher-quality balls are of medlar . The ball
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