ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the case of the animalino, and other companion cats and dogs at the Mantuan court. It explores the possibility of understanding animal experience and feelings as equally important considerations. Whatever the species of the animalino, and it may well be that he was an unusual domestic cat of some kind, such as that in Bacchiacca's portrait of a lady with a cat. Recent scientific study finds not only the presence of companion animals to be beneficial to human wellbeing but particularly the act of touching and stroking them. This chapter has argued that the relationships between Mantuan rulers and their companion animals were based on markers of power, status, and ownership. The paradigms of research into the physiological and psychological effects of the human-companion animal relationship may move historians to look with new eyes at the ways these effects were conceptualised and lived in the past.
