as submitted by the United States Neapolitan Mastiff Club
Synonymous of the Italian Mastiff, this large breed is the result of at least four
thousand years of both natural and human selection based on the various
descriptions obtained as a gift from the past. According to different sources,
the progenitor of this mastiff is a Tibetan dog which directly affected the
phenotype of the Persian Mastiff used in battle by King Porus against
Alexander The Great.It was Alexander The Great who admired the strength of these dogs and brought them to his kingdom in Greece to a region of Epirus called "Molossia" (from which the term Molossus used by the Romans to describe this dog, freely translated in English a Molossian), and thereafter, were bred for many years. The Roman Emperor Paolo Emilio, at his triumphal return to Rome after a military campaign in Greece, brought a hundred of these dogs back as war booty. Based on reports of Quinto Aurelio Simmaco, the Romans widely employed these dogs for their fighting games at the Colosseum ("giochi circensis").
At the time of Julius Caesar, the original Greek strain was supposedly bred with the mastiffs encountered during the military campaign in Britannia (the actual Great Britain), most likely brought there by the Phoenicians.
The status of this breed following the decline of the Roman empire is less clear but the breed fortunately survived the Medieval Ages as witnessed by several authors who cite this dog in their works (see the Molossian in the literature).
During this age Molossian dogs were used for guarding castles
and for wild boar hunting. A crucial step for the selection of the
present day phenotype of the N.M. was the contribution of the
Spanish "Perro de Presa" that was bred with the ancient Italian
mastiff at the time of the Spanish domination in southern Italy;
(the so called "Kingdom of the two Sicilys") around the middle
of the XV century (1450 A.D.)This dog became in vogue for kings as well as for their servants in the region ruled by the royal families of Aragona and later Borboni. This was so evident that the mastiff became a common theme in both sculptures and paintings present throughout the southern Italian peninsula.
In the centuries that followed the end of the Spanish kingdom, in Italy the breed survived in the countryside around Naples thanks to the devotion of individuals who loved the strength, the character, and the loyalty of this dog.
The Italian nickname used to describe these N.M. owners ("Mastinari") is still used by the Italian breeders in southern Italy. However, the contribution of these people would have been unrecognized without the work of another passionate writer, Piero Scanziani, who, following World War II, collected some subjects from the Neapolitan countryside and bred them at the zoo in Rome. This led to the official recognition of this ancient dog in Italy in 1949 by the Italian Kennel Club (ENCI).
History Of The Neapolitan Mastiff In The United States
- The Neapolitan Mastiff has been documented in the United States since the early 1970's when ads for an "Italian Bulldog" appeared in the New York papers.
- The NMCA (Neapolitan Mastiff Club of America) was founded in 1973 by Michael Sottile Sr., Jane and Carmine Pampalone. This was the first United States registry established for the breed at this time. The NMCA acted as the focal point for information on the breed, distributed a newsletter, and hosted a few select large-scale rare-breed shows.
- During the early 1990's, two clubs formed, one being the ANMA (American Neapolitan Mastiff Association), and the other was the USNMC (United States Neapolitan Mastiff Club). In 1991 the nucleus of the founding members of the USNMC were located in the Northeast. The USNMC incorporated in this year and with use of computerization focused on the need to procure a new and viable registry. They worked to improve on education, and promotion of the breed by hosting local rare-breed shows. Shortly thereafter Michael Sottile retired and relocated from the Northeast and the USNMC would become the main registry for the Neapolitan Mastiff.
- It is safe to say that all dogs in the United States today are descendants of dogs obtained from nearly all of the most renowned breeders in Italy. Those Americans serious about breeding then went on to develop their own kennel names, which should appear on the progeny of dogs originating from a successful American breeding kennel.
