News from Italy
How Ferrari’s prancing horse was born?
by Alessandro Romano
The Ferrari logo, the splendid prancing horse, was present on Francesco Baracca’s plane. The aviator’s mother gave it to Enzo Ferrari in 1923.
Today, it is one of the most famous brands in the world. Indeed, it is the strongest brand on the entire planet. Yes, we are talking about a legend of the automotive industry: The Prancing Horse Ferrari.
You certainly don’t need to be a car enthusiast to recognize the silhouette of a black horse on a yellow background raised on its hind legs. Few other brands can boast a logo as well known and entrenched in the collective imagination as Ferrari, with its Prancing Horse. But what about the origins of that symbol? Well, the story is much more interesting than you might think: The Prancing Horse was not born from the imagination of Enzo Ferrari.
The Cavallino coat of arms is that of Francesco Baracca, an aviator from Emilia and a hero of the First World War, who painted it on the cockpit of his plane. Therefore, to trace Ferrari’s horse, we must go back to the years of the First World War and find the heroic pilot Francesco Baracca.
Francesco Baracca (Lugo, 1888 – Montello, 1918) was an Italian aviator during the Great War. Having enrolled at the Military School of Modena, he was sent to France in 1912 to follow an aviation course. He immediately showed great ability and became one of the most skilled men to fly an aeroplane in the early 1910s.
When Italy entered the war, Baracca accelerated his preparation for a new type of aircraft, the Nieuport. The first action was carried out on 25 August 1915, and on 7 April 1916, it achieved its first victory, forcing an Austro-Hungarian reconnaissance plane to land. From that moment, the pilot from Romagna began to collect numerous successes, which filled the pages of all the newspapers of the time.
Its popularity increased even more when the 91st Squadron was formed in the spring of 1917, comprised of the “Aces”. Most likely, it was in this period that the idea of choosing a black prancing horse as his symbol was also born. He intervened in many battles, obtaining 34 victories. Right at the peak of his career, during the Battle of the Solstice, he was shot to death on Montello Hill (19 June 1918), and the man was definitively transformed into a myth.
The history of the prancing horse is very particular. The only certainty is represented by the rule that allowed each aviator to choose his coat of arms after having shot down the fifth enemy plane. At the time of the fifth kill, you automatically became an “ace” and could choose the symbol to place on the cockpit of your aircraft. Francesco Baracca chose the little horse.
Some maintain that Baracca chose that because he attended the cavalry school with the second Royal Piedmont Regiment founded by the Duke of Savoy in 1692 with the motto: “Venustus et Audax”. That department has a silver prancing horse on a red background as its heraldic coat of arms; the horse is oriented towards the left and has its tail lowered. That emblem was on Baracca’s planes between 1917 and 1918, when it was shot down.
Enzo Ferrari’s bond with the Baracca family
Enzo Ferrari began his automotive career in 1920. Three years later, on 16 June 1923, he drove the Alfa Romeo RL – Targa Florio with Giulia Ramponi. On that occasion, he won the first Savio Circuit, and there he met Count Enrico Baracca again, Francesco’s father (who had already been missing for five years). Subsequently, Countess Paolina Biancoli, the aviator’s mother, donated her son’s coat of arms to Enzo Ferrari.
Count Enrico and Countess Paolina Baracca, Francesco’s parents, enthused by the courage and daring shown by the young Ferrari, entrusted him with the glorious symbol of their son who fell in battle, with the hope that it would honour him on a sporting level. Ferrari took that emblem and made it his own but was unable to use it immediately. Because he drove for Alfa Romeo, which already had his badge. In 1929, when “Drake” created the Ferrari, he officially adopted the horse as his symbol. In 1932, the prancing horse appeared on the Alfa Romeos of the Scuderia Ferrari in the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium (it was 9 July).
The story of the little horse was told by Ferrari himself in a letter he wrote to Giovanni Manzoni on 3 July 1985: “When I won the first Savio circuit in 1923, which was held in Ravenna, I met Count Enrico Baracca, father of the hero; that meeting gave rise to the next one with his mother, Countess Paolina. She said to me one day: ‘Ferrari, put my son’s prancing horse on your cars. It will bring you luck’. I still keep the photograph of Baracca, with the dedication from my parents, in which they entrusted me with the emblem. The little horse was and remained black.”
