Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/392

364 perhaps the simplest way of approaching the subject would be to glance at the Dogs which one finds there.

The reader will be able to supply from his own knowledge many mediæval pictures containing Dogs. I will only take one by Vittore Pisano, who was born in 1380—a picture which all will know, as it is in our National Gallery. It is the Conversion of St. Eustace. He, like St. Hubert, meets a Stag with a crucifix between its horns. Eustace is on horseback. Near him are two Dogs of mastiff breed, and one that is a kind of staghound. In front are two setters; to the right two magnificent greyhounds pursuing a Hare, which is bolting for a wood which contains a Brown Bear; on the left the heads of two big hounds with drooping ears, obviously of the nature of bloodhounds. In this picture are to be found most of the recognized breeds of mediæval Italy. The commonest of them is Veltro, the greyhound—the Vertagus of Martial—that was trained to bring to his master the Hare unhurt. It is of them that Dante speaks where he tells of the pursuit of Lano and his friends through the wood of human trees (Inf. xiii. 126). He says the Hell-hounds come on like greyhounds let out of a leash; and again (Inf. xxiii. 18), more cruel than a Dog to a Hare, which it seizes in its teeth. The greyhound was used for pursuing, but did not find game. For this purpose a kind of setter was used. He marked the Hare for the greyhound, and put up the birds for the Hawk. The Dog was called Bracco, whence the French Brague, and does not occur in the 'Comedy'; but Dante, in the "Convito," says every excellence in everything is to be desired, "Siccome nel bracco il bene oderare, nel veltro il bene correre."

He is speaking of a bigger breed of Dogs in Ugolino's dream (Inf. xxxiii.), where the latter saw the Archbishop hunting the Wolves and whelps upon the mountain ("con cagne magre studiose et conte"), which Longfellow translates, "With sleuth-hounds gaunt, eager, and well-trained." They were probably a breed of mastiffs ("mastini," the Roman Molossus), which were used also for catching thieves (Inf. xxi. 44). It was with these that Nastigio degli Onesti saw his phantom ancestor Cavalcante hunting the fair Lady Disdain in the woods of Chiasso, near Ravenna. This breed originally came from Epirus, but there was a bigger one still coming from Sarmatia, known as Alano; so much stronger,