Condensing over 4000 years of the history of this Italian
breed into a few lines is certainly no simple task. From the
Mesopotamian terracotta representions at the Metropolitan Museum
of New York to the modern Neapolitan mastiff, the breed has certainly
evolved, though some of its distinguishing characteristics, which
give it a unique standing in the ever- growing pantheon of officially-
recognised breeds in the world, remain more or less unaltered.
If, from one point of view, there exists a spasmodic quest for
the rediscovery of native breeds of the more or less recent past
in the countries of the world, there is the opposite problem
in the case of the Neapolitan mastiff; that of maintaining it,
whilst also improving it, as the 'neapolitan mastinarians' so
jealously conserved it through the centuries. To them we owe
a sincere debt of thanks,for having conserved this truly historic
monument of Italian cinophilia, for which all the world envies
us a little.
There is a vast bibliography, both Italian and foreign, on the
Neapolitan mastiff, which, in varying ways, traces its history
from the origins to the present day, with plentiful iconographic
and storiographic support. Of all the works available today,
surely the most respected is Prof. Felice Cesario's 'Il Molosso,
viaggio intorno al Mastino Napolitano', published by Fausto Fiorentino
in 1995. Even without journeying back to the remotest past, there
is certain proof that the Sumerians bred large and powerful dogs,
which were used both in battle and in hunting large animals,
especially lions. Their main characteristics were: a large and
powerful head with a strong and rather short muzzle; strong and
muscular limbs supported by a well-developed bone structure;
a solid and strong trunk and an imposing height. Such a powerful
dog must surely have been a descendent of the great Tibetan mastiff,
which is rightly considered by all the greatest authorities as
the ancestor of all the mollossoids.
Thus the Sumerians, so mysterious and at the same time so cultured
and advanced, must, in the course of their migrations have brought
this race to Mesopotamia; a race which, in the land between the
Tigris and the Euphrates, found such fortune as to have been
represented in several major archaeological finds, which are
now kept in many of the world's greatest museums. Indeed, we
know that, in Mesopotamia, there were already great settlements
(Eridu, Susa, Ur, Uruk, to mention just the most famous) 2000
years before Christ, and that in these settlements large dogs
were reared, and used mainly to protectproperty (but also livestock)
from the attacks of lions, which in those days were common in
that region. Therefore, the interest shown by the artists of
the day in this dog, whose deeds often gave it a place in popular
legend, is obvious. Indeed, it is from this time that we see
the first historical artistic representations of this dog.
The terracotta from the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and
another at the Chicago Museum of Art, give likenesses of a dog
very similar to our Neapolitan Mastiff. The first shows a sitting
dog with an extremely large head, full of folds of flesh, with
an improbably powerful muzzle and amputated ears; in the second
we see a female, with the same characteristics of power and substance
of the head, feeding four puppies. The similarity between these
historical imagesand the modern Mastiff is impressive: we stress
the 'modern' Mastiff as opposed to those presented at the 1946
Exhibition of Naples which so impressed Piero Scanziani. Yet,
to appreciate better the dimensions and power of these dogs,we
need only examine the Assyrian terracotta, of a later date than
those previously mentioned, which dates from the 9th century
B.C. and is kept in the British Museum, which shows a dog being
held by the collar by its master.
This artefact, of exceptional artistic and historical interest
(and for this reason cited in the most important scientific texts)
allows us to make even more precise and detailed speculations
about these great molossians of antiquity.
First of all, regarding size; the height at the withers reaches
the master's belt, and therefore surely cannot be less than 80cm.;
the head,of great volume and with many wrinkles, with ears intact,
flat and rather high on the head; the dewlap is highly developed,
beginning near the corner of the mouth and finishing halfway
down the neck; lastly, the trunk, of huge power and mass, longer
than the heght at the withers and supported by a very powerful
bone structure, with a prominent transversal diameter.
These historical testimonies immediately recall the modern Mastiff,
so close is their resemblance to today's breed.But to return
to the breed's history: these dogs spread westwards, no doubt
because of wars and migrations, in three directions: one to the
north, towards Anatolia, Greece, Macedonia and Albania; one further
south towards Egypt and Libya, and another towards the eastern
coasts of the Mediterranean basin, in what was then the land
of the Phoenecians. This was to prove an important step in the
expansion of the breed throughout Europe, and particularly in
Italy.
Such powerful dogs were often offered as gifts between the rulers
of the time. Alexander the Great was proud of his molossians,
a gift from a king, and the Roman consul Paulus Emilius, whose
legions were victorious on molossian soil,brought several of
these great dogs as spoils of war to show to the people in Rome.
Julius Caesar himself, at around the middle of the first century
B.C., during his British campaign, saw his legions faced by dogs
of great stature and courage very similar to those described
above, which he referred to as 'Pugnaces Brittaniae'.
Impressed by so much power and courage, Caesar took several
specimens back to Rome with him, and at the same time appointed
in Britain a procurator who was charged with raising and transporting
these dogs to Rome.
The presence of this race in Britain strengthens, and, indeed,
confirms the hypothesis that even before the Romans, the Phoenecians,
undisputed kings of trade in those days, spread this type of
dog in the Mediterranean basin, certainly together with other
breeds which were the forerunners of our Cirneco of Etna and
of all the Iberian Podenghi.
We can therefore state with certainty thateven before Paulus
Emilius and Julius Caesar some of these great molossians had
already arrived in our territory, introduced by the Phoenecians
Both Varron and Virgil dealt with this subject to a certain
extent, but he who studied the Mastiff most closely and in greatest
detail was Columella, who more or less defined what could be
called a breed standard in the first century A.D.. In his 'De
Re Rustica', Columella defines it as an excellent guardian of
house and property, anticipating its currnet use by almost 2000
years.
Even if, as is well known, it was used in Roman times as a weapon
of war, and in combat against wild animals in the circus, and
was later to be found in the courts of the Renaissance in central
and northern Italy as a hunter of large game (deer and wild boar),
the mastiff remained a guard dog, continuing the function which
had made it famous among the Sumerians and the Mesopotamians
so long before.
Precisely because of this natural adeptness as a guard dog,
in Roman times the patrician class used it to safeguard their
villas, which were at one time numerous in the region of Campania.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the dogs remained, finding
an agreeable habitat on the slopes of Vesuvius, and formed a
close link both with the land and the people that lived on it.
It was on this very land, on the slopes of Vesuvius, that Piero
Scanziani encountered the Neapolitan Mastiff and fell in love
with it, so much so as to be rightly remembered as the man to
whom we owe the modern existence of this magnificent breed, today
sought after by dog-lovers all over the world.
We wish to thank Franco Candia
for allowing us to reproduce this section,from http://www.mastinonapoletano.it
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