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The name The name Cane Corso means "guard dog of enclosed property." In fact, corso, or "of an enclosure" is a word that attributes to the dog its primary and per antonomasia function of strenuous and attentive guardian of property. Corso, then, does not mean "from Corisca," as the monumental Battaglia dictionary still maintains ("large dog of fierce character, originally from Corsica"). It is rather a word with august traditions that belongs to the lexicon used in southern Italy, in particular in Puglia, with some variations, like the Upper-Lucanian cane corsicano and with some alternatives, like the Calabrian-Lucanian cane guzzo and the Sicilian dogo di Sicilia. In his time, professor Giovanni Bonatti, a scientist of great value in the field of animal husbandry, in the course of long conversations with Doctor Stefano Gandolfi, raised doubts about the use of the adjective corso to refer to our dog, because, in his opinion, the word had always generically referred to the Italian Molosser. In any case, he held that the term ought to be used to refer to an ancient Celtic or Provençal matrix and that it probably meant "robust", which would demonstrate the survival of the English adjective "coarse", that is, "unrefined" and "rough", as opposed to fine, that is, "minute" and "thin." Another hypothesis seems more plausible: the above mentioned Doctor Gandolfi proposes the Latin noun cohors as the matrix, that is, the Roman praetorian "cohort", which would suggest the attribution of the ancient function of body guard to our dog. Others see in corso a certain consonance with corsiero (courser), in the sense that, to a heavy and steady type of molossoid (for example the present day Neapolitan Mastiff), would be opposed a lighter and more agile kind of dog, capable of catching prey, covering long stretches of road alongside carters and tariff-collectors, and protecting migrating herds. These last two hypotheses lead us, as is evident, to morphological and above all functional concepts that are, in the end ,the historical reasons for the presence of the dog among various human societies. This is why all conjecture of this sort ends up being at least partially true. The recognition of the etymological root of Cane Corso opens up many avenues of investigation, but it does not resolve all of the perplexities inherent in the name and its concrete image. What is more, how could one not think about the similar uncertainties associated with terms that are more established in common usage and technical classification, like the very word "molosser". The Molossi where a people, probably of Macedonian origin, who established themselves in Epirus in 1200 BC. Thus, this term may rightly seem to be too narrow of a geo-historical definition, while "mastiff" (derived from the Late Latin mansuetinus), can be judged too generic, in so much as the term could apply to any member of the species Canis familiaris. When, some years ago, people ardently and concretely talked about the recuperation of the Cane Corso with Stefano Gandolfi and Giancarlo Malavasi, both from the great city of Virgil, and still, when people speak to breed experts today, the question of its name never was or is just an exercise in leisurely erudition; it has always been closely linked to the enterprise of recuperation. The term corso seems to respect the name that has continually been used to identify our dog precisely where it has been most widespread and where it has been most intensely employed. And it seems to be the most convincing label; it is applicable precisely at the point where several fundamental cynologic lines intersect: the vertical line of tradition and the horizontal line of diffusion; it is the dividing line which decisively and with extreme clearness differentiates the Cane Corso from related breeds, particularly the other molossoids present and employed in southern Italy. |
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