Editing Italian Greyhound (section)

== History ==
[[File:Greyhounds playing, Vatican.jpg|thumb|Marble statue believed to represent dogs of this type, second century AD, discovered at [[Lanuvio]] in 1774, now in the [[Vatican Museums]]]]
[[File:Engraving of Italian Greyhounds, from The dog, in health and disease, by John Henry Walsh, 1859, page 44.jpg|thumb|Engraving showing two prize-winning Italian Greyhounds in the United Kingdom, from [[John Henry Walsh]], ''The Dog in Health and Disease'', 1859]]
Small dogs of sighthound type have long been popular with [[nobility]] and [[Royal family|royalty]]. Among those believed to have kept them are [[Frederick II, Duke of Swabia]]; members of the [[D'Este]], [[Medici]] and [[Visconti of Milan|Visconti]] families; the French kings [[Louis XI]], [[Charles VIII of France|Charles VIII]], [[Charles IX of France|Charles IX]], [[Louis XIII]] and [[Louis XIV]];{{r|enci2}} [[Frederick II of Prussia|Frederick the Great of Prussia]];{{r|des|page=519}} [[Anne of Denmark]]; [[Catherine II of Russia|Catherine the Great]]; and [[Queen Victoria]].{{r|akc}} Dogs of this type have often been represented in sculpture – including a second-century Roman statue now in the [[Vatican Museums]] – and paintings, notably by [[Giotto]], [[Sassetta]] and [[Tiepolo]].{{r|enci2|enci5}}

Dogs of this kind were taken in the first half of the nineteenth century to the United Kingdom, where they were known as Italian Greyhounds;{{r|jhw|page=44}} the first volume of ''The Kennel Club Calendar and Stud Book'', published in 1874, lists forty of them.{{r|kc|page=597}} A [[breed association]], the Italian Greyhound Club, was established in Britain in 1900.{{r|cpli|cecil|page2=157}} Registrations by the [[American Kennel Club]] began in 1886.{{r|akc}}

The history of the modern Piccolo Levriero goes back to the last years of the nineteenth century. A total of six of the dogs were shown in 1901 in [[Milan]] and [[Novara]], two in [[Turin]] in 1902, and one in [[Udine]] in 1903. Numbers began to increase only after the [[First World War]], partly as a result of the work of two individual breeders, Emilio Cavallini and [[Giulia Ajò Montecuccoli degli Erri]].{{r|enci4|enci5}} In this post-War period the Piccolo Levriero was bred principally in Italy, France and Germany, and some Italian breeders imported dogs from outside the country. Of the forty-five of the dogs registered in 1926–1927 by the Kennel Club Italiano (as it was then known), twenty-eight were born in Italy and seventeen were imported.{{r|enci4}}

The events of the [[Second World War]] brought the Piccolo Levriero close to extinction, and numbers began to recover only in the 1950s, particularly after 1951, when Maria Luisa Incontri Lotteringhi della Stufa brought the influential bitch Komtesse von Gastuna from Austria.{{r|enci4|enci5}} The breed was definitively accepted by the [[Fédération Cynologique Internationale]] in October 1956,{{r|fci}} and in November of that year a [[breed society]], the {{lang|it|italic=no|Circolo del Levriero Italiano}}, was formed under the auspices of the [[Ente Nazionale della Cinofilia Italiana]]; it was later renamed the {{lang|it|italic=no|Circolo del Piccolo Levriero Italiano}}.{{r|enci4}}

In the nine years from 2011 to 2019, the Ente Nazionale della Cinofilia Italiana recorded a total of 2557 new registrations of the Piccolo Levriero, with a minimum of 213 and a maximum of 333 per year.{{r|enci2}}