Romagnola cattle were used principally as draught beasts in the past; since the mechanisation of agriculture in the middle of the twentieth century they have been bred primarily for beef production.

[1] This hypothesis is based on the zoological theories of the nineteenth century, going back to the Bos taurus podolicus of Johann Andreas Wagner.

Following the progressive mechanisation of agriculture in the years after the Second World War the breeding strategy changed completely, and was directed towards beef production.

[4] Some animals were exported to Scotland in the early 1970s and the breed is present in small numbers in Great Britain, Ireland, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and Africa.

The horns are light, lyre-shaped in cows, half-moon-shaped in bulls; they are slate-grey in young animals, becoming pale at the base and dark at the tip with maturity.