History
The San Fratellano comes from San Fratello, in the Nebrodi mountains in the province of Messina in Sicily. The horses developed and were bred in a native habitat that resulted in a strong, powerful type known for their endurance.
A Lombard princess, Adelaide del Vasto, married Roger I of Sicily, a Norman noble, in the 11th century AD. Sicily was ruled by Norman warlords at the time, and Princess Adelaide del Vasto brought to Sicily her retinue, including a number of knights and their horses. To this day the people of San Fratello speak a Lombard dialect, different from the Sicilian dialect of surrounding areas. The San Fratellano horse is said to have descended from the horses of the Lombard knights.
The breed has received infusions of Anglo-Arab, Spanish Anglo-Arab, Salerno and Nonius blood, and has remained quite true to type. It resembles its fellow Italian breed, the Maremmano. Breeding stock is carefully selected for propagation, and most colts are trained young as pack horses.
Read more about this topic: San Fratello Horse
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)