Poggio a Caiano I's tennis court (1543) intact but no longer in use. The "palatoia" (as the court was referred to in Tuscany - elsewhere known as "pallacorda") was built for Cosimo I at the same time as his court at Palazzo Pitti. The "tennis" of the Italian Renaissance was hugely popular at court and in the streets as in France where the sport is known as "jeu de paume". "Real tennis" (as it is called today), which requires a customised court with elaborate interior playing surfaces, is the model for modern tennis although the sport played in the Renaissance continues to be
Rose Valland Valland became a volunteer assistant curator at the Jeu de Paume Museum. In 1941, during World War II, Valland was put in paid service and became the overseer of the Jeu de Paume Museum at the time of the German occupation of France. Through the "Special Staff for Pictorial Art" (Sonderstab Bildende Kunst) of the "Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die besetzten Gebiete" (The Reich Leader Rosenberg Institute for the Occupied Territories), or ERR, the Germans began the systematic looting of artworks from museums and private art collections throughout France. They used the Jeu de Paume Museum as their central storage