In 1325, the Italian cities of Bologna and Modena went to war over territorial disputes, part of the larger Guelph-Ghibelline conflict between supporters of the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. When Modena captured Bologna's fortress of Monteveglio, war erupted. At the Battle of Zappolino, Modena's 7,000 soldiers defeated Bologna's 32,000. After victory, Modenese soldiers took a wooden bucket from a public well in Bologna as a war trophy. Bologna demanded its return. Modena refused and has kept it for nearly 700 years. The bucket became legendary through Alessandro Tassoni's 1624 mock-heroic poem, and the 'War of the Bucket' myth - that the bucket caused the war - overshadowed the real history.
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