Cats in Literature:
From the Atlantic, centuries old proof of feline misbehavior…
For cat owners, the scene is all too familiar: You sit down to finally (finally!) get some work done, and along comes kitty, here to stroll across your keyboard.
Now, via medievalist Emir O. Filipovic, evidence that cats have been up to this same mischief for six centuries: inky pawprints, gracing a page of the 13th volume of “Lettere e commissioni di Levante,” which collated copies of letters and instructions that the Dubrovnik/Ragusan government sent to its merchants and envoys throughout southeastern Europe (Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia etc.), according to Filipovic — sort of a 15th-century Federal Register. The particular document that the cat got its paws on dates to March 11th, 1445.