Cats in Italy

Feline expressions in English and Italian

Every year thousands of people visit Italy. Some go to view the country’s historic monuments, others to sample its artistic treasures, and still others to relax on its magnificent beaches. The motive of my last trip to Italy was ostensibly to see relatives, but while I was there I kept my eye on another feature of the Italian landscape: its cats.

From the very beginning, felines have played an important role in Italian life. The ruins of Pompeii, for example, contain the remains of a woman holding a cat in her arms. The Romans are believed to have brought cats to many of the lands they conquered, such as Britain. Rome, like Paris, boasts numerous colonies of stray felines who subsist not only on mice and birds but on handouts from tourists and residents.

Not surprisingly, Italians have developed a number of sayings and expressions involving cats. The word for cat in Italian is “gatto” from the Latin “cattus,” as in Felis cattus, a phrase that appears in Star Trek personality Data’s famous poem “Ode to Spot” (“Felis cattus is your taxonomic nomenclature…”). A female cat is a “gatta;” the plural of the masculine and feminine forms are “gatti” and “gatte” respectively. The term for “kitten” is “gattino” (plural “gattini”), which means “little cat.”

Some Italian feline proverbs resemble those in English, albeit with minor variations. For instance, “vivere come cani e gatti” translates literally as “to live like dogs and cats,” a phrase any Englishman fluent in Italian would recognize in his own “to fight like cats and dogs.” Likewise, “When the cat’s away the mice can play” becomes “Quando il gatto non c’è i topi ballano:” “When the cat is not there, the mice dance.”

Cats in Italy seem to enjoy exceptional longevity. The Italians say, “I gatti hanno sette spiriti,” or “Cats have seven spirits.” This suggests that Italian cats possess six more lives than do most other creatures but two fewer than their counterparts in Anglo-Saxon nations.

Other Italian sayings lack an English equivalent with the term “cat” yet still can be translated indirectly. For instance, “Ho altre gatte da pelare” (“I have other cats to skin”) might be best expressed as “I have other fish to fry.” Another example: “La gatta frettolosa fece i gattini ciechi” - “The hurried cat produced blind kittens.” In other words, haste makes waste.

Different regions in Italy have their own feline proverbs. According to the Tuscans, “Al buio ogni gatta è morella,” of which the closest English counterpart is “All cats are grey at night.” The term “morella” means “dark grey” or “smoky” - the same colour as the cat pictured with me in Urban Mozaik. The Sicilian dialect possesses the expression “Figghia di gatta mancia surci” - “The daughter of the cat eats mice.” Like mother, like daughter. (Those who know Italian might wonder why Sicilians use “surci” rather than a variant of the standard Italian “topo” for mouse. “Surci” comes from the same source as the French word “souris” for that animal.)

A relatively new feline term in Italian is “gattara.” This translates roughly as “cat lady.” The word generally refers an older, often slightly mentally unbalanced woman who owns numerous cats and attracts other neighbourhood felines due to her propensity to feed them. I myself have been called a “gattara” for having five cats.

Thus the cat has contributed to Italy not only by reducing the rodent population but by enriching the country’s language.

- Emily, 17, Canada