As a cat of remarkable intelligence and undeniable beauty, I enjoy studying feline history.
One of my favorite cat legends begins in Iran more than four hundred years ago. Historical records show that an Italian traveler named Pietro della Valle helped bring Persian cats to Europe in the 1600s. The rest of the story grows a bit fuzzy. Over the centuries, tales emerged that painted him as a daring cat smuggler who could not resist taking a few magnificent felines home with him.
Whether every detail of those stories deserves belief remains open to debate. What nobody disputes, however, is that Persian cats trace their ancestry to the Iranian plateau.
The greatest surprise arrived centuries later. The Persian cats that first reached Europe did not have the extremely flat faces many people associate with the breed today. They looked far more natural, with longer noses and a different appearance. Through selective breeding, humans gradually transformed the breed into the modern Persian.
As for me, I find the whole affair rather suspicious.
