This study gives estimates of breeding progress achieved in winter barley {Hordeum vulgare L.) since the 1960's in grain yield and the change in several morphological traits for seventeen historically important cultivars: 12 six-rowed and 5 tworowed, grouped into four epochs according to the period of major commercialization in Italy. All genotypes were evaluated across a range of soil fertility and climatic environments.The modern six-rowed cuitivars have shown a consistent increase in tillers/m' and seeds/spike (16 and 28 %, respectively) over the local populations. In the modern two-rowed cultivar 'Igri' the increase in tiilers/m^ and seed weight were, respectively, 20 and 14 % and seeds/spike decreased by 20 % over the local populations. The modern six-rowed and two-rowed cultivars have less lodging, are earlier and shorter than the old varieties and local populations. In the last quarter of a century, the breeding progress for gram yield has been increased, by 52 and 74 kg/ ha/year or 0.75 and 1.1 % per year respectively, for six-rowed and two-rowed genotypes; while the gain in biomass yield in the same period was not uniform for six-rowed cultivars and increased by 64 kg/ha/ year or 0.46 % in two-rowed cultivars. The grain yield improvement in the modern six-rowed and two-rowed cultivars is the result of a better partitioning of the photosynthetic products into the grain.