War of the Bucket

A conflict between the Italian city-states of Bologna and Modena, remembered for Modena’s victory at the Battle of Zappolino and the story of a stolen bucket.

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Bologna: A city in northern Italy and the historic capital of Emilia-Romagna. Its conflict with Modena over territory and influence helped set the war in motion.
Battle of Zappolino: A 1325 battle near Zappolino in which Modena defeated Bologna. This decisive clash brought the conflict to its military climax.
Alessandro Tassoni: A seventeenth-century Italian poet best known for the mock-heroic poem Secchia Rapita. His treatment of the bucket story gave the war its most influential literary retelling.
Peace of 1326: A settlement in 1326 that ended the immediate conflict between Bologna and Modena. It followed Modena’s victory and formalized the conflict’s immediate resolution.
Modena: A city in northern Italy in the Emilia-Romagna region. Modena fought Bologna and emerged victorious at Zappolino.
Oak Bucket of Modena: A medieval wooden bucket preserved in Modena and linked to the war’s famous legend. The bucket became the memorable trophy said to have been taken from Bologna.
Mock-heroic: A literary mode that applies the elevated style of epic to trivial or comic subjects. Tassoni used this mode to recast the conflict around an ordinary bucket.
Medieval Italian city-states: Independent or semi-independent urban governments that dominated much of medieval Italy. Their competition over territory and authority made wars like this one recurrent.
Guelphs and Ghibellines: Opposing political factions in medieval Italy, associated broadly with papal and imperial authority. Their rivalry shaped the alliances and politics surrounding the two cities.
Dante Alighieri: An Italian poet whose Divine Comedy depicts political conflict among Italian cities. His writing reflects the factional violence that formed the war’s wider political backdrop.