The Maremmana is a breed of cattle reared in the Maremma, a prairie region extending in western central Italy from southern Tuscany to northern Lazio, usually in the provinces of Grosseto and Viterbo respectively.
The Maremmana breed is a descendent of the Taurus macroceros, a long horned cattle that spread from the Eurasian steppes throughout Europe, that can be traced in Italy as far back as the Etruscan era.
The Maremmana has a gray coat that is darker in males and lighter-colored in females, with blank apical pigmentation. As in other breeds of Podolica descent, calves are wheat-colored at birth and then at around three months they turn to the characteristic color of the breed.
The horns are long up to 100 cm and have typical half-moon shape in males and females have lyre-shaped horns.
The Maremmana has an impressive skeletal structure that gives the adult a very solid and robust appearance. This very large sized cattle has extremely solid legs, exceptionally hard hovves and, in general, perfect perpendicularity.
It is one of the two breeds used in the preparation of the florentine steak, with the other being the better known Chianina breed), and would also be used as draft oxen in the past.[1] It would traditionally be tended by butteri, but is now rare and is listed in the Italian Slow Food's Ark of Taste.[2]