In the historic halls of Modena, a bucket is preserved as an object of memory. It’s not his price that makes him famous. It represents an episode of the rivalry between Modena and Bologna, associated with the Battle of Zappolino in 1325.
The municipality presents it as a trophy carried by the Modenais. Later, Alessandro Tassoni made it the centerpiece of his poem La Secchia rapita, a work that mixes historical material with irony and invention. The object has thus passed from the memory of conflict to literature.
Telling that two cities would have gone to war only for one bucket thus reverses the meaning of history. The trophy symbolizes a confrontation and its stories; it does not alone explain their rivalries. What is surprising is not that a banal object possesses immense military power, but that it can carry for centuries a quarrel, a joke and a local identity.
What we know
The bucket is presented as a trophy and an object of memory; no single cause of war attributed to its theft.
To go to the source
References consulted on September 21, 2026. Linked pages may be in another language.
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