Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

Descriptions of white sheep defense dogs are found in ancient Roman literature, in works such as those of Columella, Varro and Palladius. Similar dogs are depicted in numerous sculptures and paintings from Roman times to the present.[5] Among the earliest is the series of large statues (two in Rome, one in Florence, one – the Duncombe Dog – in England) copied from a Hellenistic bronze from Pergamon.[6] Iconographic sources that have been identified as relevant to the history of the Maremmano include:[6]

• A Hellenistic bas-relief, of which a drawing was published by Max von Stephanitz in 1901[7]
• A votive statuette in the Museo Archeologico of Capua
• A 14th-century mediaeval fresco in the church of San Francesco in Amatrice, at the foot of the Monti della Laga, in the comune of Rieti; the dog wears a roccale
• A 14th-century fresco in Santa Maria Novella, in Florence
• A 'Nativity' of Mariotto di Nardo (active 1394–1424); the dog wears a spiked collar
• Abraham and Lot on their way into Canaan by Bartolo Battiloro, in the Collegiata of San Gimignano
• A detail of the Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem by Benozzo Gozzoli, c.1460
• Rough ink drawings on the maps of the pasture-lands of the Tavoliere di Foggia published in 1686 by Antonio and Nunzio Michele di Rovere
• A seventeenth-century engraving of the Roman campagna by Joannes van den Hecke
• An eighteenth-century maiolica of a bear-hunt by Candeloro Cappelletti (1689–1772) of Castelli, Abruzzo
• Hunting the Wolf by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, 1746, from the collection of Louis XV; the dogs to the left and right of the wolf are described in a catalogue of the museum as "large dog[s] with long hair".[8] Wolf dogs from the Abruzzo were imported into France at about this time. They were used by François Antoine, "Antoine de Beauterne", in his successful hunt for the Beast of Gévaudan in 1765;[6] according to Gobin, under Louis XV (r.1715–1774) the Venerie Royale or Royal Hunt was composed in large part of Abruzzese wolf-dogs and Sicilian mastiffs.[9]
• The cane da lupo or wolf-dog used by Vincenzo Dandolo to defend Spanish sheep on the mountains above Varese[10]
• An illustration in the Penny Magazine of 1833[11]
• An engraving by Arthur John Strutt of a shepherd and his dog in the Roman campagna in 1843
• Several engravings by Charles Coleman in his collection A Series of Subjects peculiar to the Campagna of Rome and Pontine Marshes[12]

• 
  The Canis pastoralis of classical antiquity, in the Vatican Museums; the ears are a restoration. See also the Duncombe Dog
• 
  Mariotto di Nardo, Natività, ca. 1385, showing a white shepherd dog with a spiked collar
• 
  Detail of the Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem by Benozzo Gozzoli
• 
  "Wolf dogs of the Abruzzi", illustration from the Penny Magazine of 1833

Sheepdog of the Abruzzes circa 1915

The first registration of the Maremmano in the Libro delle Origini Italiano of the Kennel Club Italiano, as it was then called, was of four dogs in 1898. There were no further registrations for many years. In 1940 there were 17 dogs registered. The first standard for the breed was drawn up in 1924 by Luigi Groppi and Giuseppe Solaro.[13]

Until 1958 the Pastore Maremmano, or shepherd dog of the Maremma, and the Pastore Abruzzese, or shepherd dog of the Abruzzi, were regarded as separate breeds. A breeder's society for the Pastore Abruzzese was formed in 1950, and one for the Maremmano in 1953. On 1 January 1958 the breeds were unified by the ENCI, the Ente Nazionale della Cinofilia Italiano, the national dog association of Italy. The explanation given is that a "natural fusion" of the two types had occurred as a result of movement of the dogs due to transhumance of sheep flocks from one region to another, particularly after the unification of Italy.[1] Until 1860, the mountains of the Abruzzo and the plains of the Maremma lay in different countries. Whilst some older publications refer to the Maremmano and Abruzzese as independent breeds combined to create the Maremmano-Abruzzese, it has been noted that the shorter-haired Maremmano was only ever observed during the winter months, when flocks were grazed on their winter pastures on the milder coastal Tuscany, whilst the supposedly longer-bodied Abruzzese was only observed in the summer months, when flocks were grazed in the Abruzzi mountains.[14][15]

As sheep farming developed into an annual trek or transhumance from mountain grasslands of Abruzzo and Molise (and other parts of central Italy) south to lower pasture land in Puglia, where sheep were over-wintered, the dogs came to play a central role in the centuries-old migration, an annual event vital to Abruzzese culture. Maremmano dogs continue to be widely used by Italian sheep farmers in areas where predation is common, such as the Apennines of central Italy and the open range land of national parks in Abruzzo. Besides their wide use in Italy, Maremma Sheepdogs are extensively used as livestock guardian dogs in Australia, Canada and the United States.[16]