[Artemisia] question for Baron Niccolo

[Bruce Padget]

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Mary Hodges <hodgemary at cableone.net> wrote:

> How old is the game of bocce?
>
> Thanks,
> Jehane


Sorry so long responding.   As so often happens, I'll have to hedge the
question a little.  If you're asking about fully-formalized court bocce,
you're likely looking at a game a couple of hundred years old.  The answer
would be pretty much the same If you're asking about any specific detailed
rule set.  But, the general game form of throwing/rolling balls at a target
ball, generically called bowls, is definitely pre-1601.

Some solid dates I've been able to get -- Venetian law attempted to prohibit
the game in 1576, Edward II attempted to do the same in 1366, and there is a
bowling green in England with records of continuous operation back to 1299.
Breugel's incredible painting "Children's Games" (1560) pretty clearly shows
one group of children bowling, and there may be another group of bowlers in
the background.  If you broaden your definition to include games where balls
are rolled/thrown at some sort of target, there are drawings from the 13th
and 14th centuries that qualify.

A couple of outlying dates I've found -- a 5,000 year old Egyptian tomb find
that contains what appears to be a set of bowls, and claims that a German
historian has dated the game to 300 AD in his country.

Regards,
Niccolo
bapadget at gmail.com