Probably of ancient origin (one of the most widely accepted etymologies takes it back to the greek bous terrein which means to push oxen. These knight errants of the ancient Maremma found belated and stirring epigones in the cowboys of the American West. In 1890 the butteri of Duke Caetani di Sermoneta challenged and beat the expert cowboys of Buffalo Bill's troupe who were on tour in Rome.With the draining of the marshes and the successive cultivation of that immense wild empire of the Pontine marshes, many herds and butteri moved north, recreating their world, especially around Grosseto which became the capital of the Maremma.

A world which even today, with the slow extinction with which it is threatened, is not self-satisfied but very reserved, almost timid and definetely very traditional.So much so that even today, very little is known about the life of the last examples of their kind, barricated between the Tolfa Hills in Upper Lazio, Etruria, the Tenuta dell'Alberese, which is now a part of the Maremma Natural Park and the Fattoria dell'Marruchetone where they demonstrate their spectacular skills in a legendary show to let people participate in those old traditions. It is really a world apart of wooden fences made of chestnut wood with a particular wide and comfortable saddle, la scarfarda, for those who have to pass days on horseback, long stirrups, goatskin tigh guards for riding in the hostile density of woods bristling with brambles and other trouser ripping shrubs, uncinos, long wooden sticks used for herding cattle and opening gates, leggins tied at the side, catana a special leather haversack for bread, salsiccia and cheese, waistcoats and caciottella, the low and simple hat worn for work, very different from the pompous hats worn by the emulators of Buffalo Bill.

And of coda all vaccinara (a classical dish of these ancient herdmen) and aquacotta the famous soup they used to eat on their long treks through the maremman wilderness.

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