For centuries, Italian cowboys — i butteri as they are called — have raised horses and herded cattle through regions of the southern European nation. There are many parallels one can draw from their culture and lifestyle with western American cowboys, but for a couple significant differences; these cowboys have more than 2,500 years of history in the saddle and their unique way of life is more threatened.

It was a decade ago that journalist and artist Gabrielle Saveri was finally able to find a contact within the tight group after many futile attempts. She searched hard for the cowboys while working as a journalist in Rome, but her search for the few dozen individuals still living the life of the butteri was failing. Not even residents in the area knew much about them, she said.

She was back in the U.S. by the time she was introduced to Guy de Galard, a Frenchman who documents cowboys all over the world and happened to be documenting the horses, history and traditions of North America’s great contemporary ranches on the eastern front of the Bighorn Mountains. Galard was able to put Saveri in contact with the butteri and she was soon on a plane, then on a train, a bus and finally a rusty bicycle before she arrived in the rugged habitat of Maremma, an area stretching from the plains of northern Lazio to the coast of southern Tuscany.

Once there she found two butteri who offered to bring her with them as they moved a herd of young horses to the salt flats.

“We spent the morning galloping through groves of olive trees in the hills, taking a herd of 2-year-old horses down to the salt flats,” she said Tuesday during a presentation in Cody. “After that, we rode to the beach and we went swimming, taking our horses in the water. It was a dream come true.”

That first visit only ended up producing a few frames. She had forgot her camera was in her saddlebag in the excitement of swimming with the horses.

Saveri has been documenting the legendary cowboys since that first ride. Her respect for their passion for their land and livestock inspired her to return often with (a new) camera in hand.

Now those photos are the subject of a special exhibition at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

Saveri’s photography is being featured for the first time on a grand scale other than having a few photos in a coffee shop near her home in northern California. The exhibition was curated by Karen Brooks McWhorter, the Collier-Read Director of Curatorial, Education, and Museum Services at the Center.

“Her photos offer an insider’s perspective on the everyday activities of the butteri, which, bathed in golden Tuscan sunlight, somehow seem so much more than mundane,” McWhorter told Point’s West Magazine.

Saveri, who was first a painter, brings the same wonderful light and textures to her photographs, which are laid out in storybook form. The show highlights the character of the butteri and offers intimate scenes from their hardscrabble lives in the saddle, as well as their deliberate fashion and joy of family.

The exhibition offers three photos in billboard sizes, allowing those visiting the show to be totally engrossed in the habitat and life among the livestock in which they take so much pride. The photos aren’t just a quick glimpse into the butteri culture; they represent years of work that allow the observer to feel what it’s like to be there through angle, action and the proud faces of those who cling to this culture.

While the Cody exhibition may be the first — scoring a show at a Smithsonian affiliated museum was a huge coup — it will not be her last. Saveri has another show planned at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City that will include several buttero trekking to the Sooner State to see the show and meet with new admirers. There are also two shows scheduled in Italy, all in an effort to bring awareness to the disappearing culture.

At stake is the surreal ballet of horse and rider caring for the prized Maremmana, a breed of cattle thousands of years old and yet still maintaining a wild, sometimes dangerous disposition. The butteri have clung to the old ways of caring for their long-horned, wild-spirited beef cows, but there are few youth willing to join them due to long, hard hours for little pay.

Saveri has already introduced the cowboys through articles she has done for the Washington Post and Travel and Leisure Magazine. That exposure has helped lead to plans to build a museum honoring the butteri culture, horses and cattle.

“I almost feel like I was put on this planet to do this story,” she said Tuesday in an interview with the Tribune.

It is Saveri’s hope that their culture will survive well into future generations.

The exhibition, titled “Italy’s Legendary Cowboys of the Maremma,” will be on display through August 6 in the John Bunker Sands Photography Gallery.