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Nor was this all, for we read of his eagerness for every sort of exercise. He could play calcio and pallone, and his own poems witness his love of hunting and of country life, and he ran a horse often enough in the palii of Siena. He was more than common tall, with broad shoulders, and very active.
There was no more to do in the house, and he spent whole days in the loggia leaning over the parapet or sitting astride it disconsolately. "Oh, you idle boy!" she cried, pinching his muscles. "Go and play pallone." "I am a married man," he answered, without raising his head. "I do not play games any more." "Go and see your friends then." "I have no friends now." "Silly, silly, silly!
Still better would the journey be worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such a game of Pallone as we chanced upon in the Via dell' Arco di Augusto lads and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, driving the great ball aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of projecting house-eaves.
To the Cascine also in the spring and autumn several hundred Florentine men come every afternoon to see the game of pallone and risk a few lire on their favourite players. Mr. Ruskin, whose "Mornings in Florence" is still the textbook of the devout, is severe enough upon those visitors who even find it in their hearts to shop and gossip in the city of Giotto.
The days were spent at bowls or pallone within the castle, or upon hawking-parties or hunting-parties when presently the Duke's health was sufficiently improved to enable him to sit his horse; and at night there was feasting which Cavalcanti must provide, and on some evenings we danced, though that was a diversion in which I took no part, having neither the will nor the art.
Wish you would." Gerald smiled again in his remote way, and looked as if he knew, as any one would know, that this was not meant to be taken seriously. "I have just seen a beautiful spectacle," he said, after a vague head-shake that thanked her shadowily for an unreal invitation. "A game of pallone, which is the nearest to your football that boys have over here.
This alienated the Pope from the King of Naples, and made him willing to join with Milan and Venice in a new league formed in 1493. Piero de' Medici was what the French call a bel homme, and little more. He was tall, muscular, and well-made, the best player at pallone in Italy, a good horseman, fluent and agreeable in conversation, and excessively vain of these advantages.
What then would he have said of one who has spent not a few afternoon hours, between five and six, in watching the game of pallone? I would not call pallone a good game.
Still better would the journey be worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such a game of Pallone as we chanced upon in the Via dell'Arco di Augusto lads and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, driving the great ball aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of projecting house-eaves.
But those who have seen pallone will not, perhaps, so much wonder at the Italians, nor condemn them for not playing their own game, when they remember that the French have turned them out of their only amphitheatre adapted for it, and left them only pazienza. If one drives out at any of the gates, he will see that spring is come.
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