What is so special about this wooden bucket? The answer could be promptly given by the Modena forces who in 1325 removed it from a public well in Via San Felice in Bologna, having won an unexpected victory over that city in the Battle of Zappolino. From that time on, as recounted in the mock-heroic poem The Rape of the Bucket written by Alessandro Tassoni in 1622, this humble implement has been treated as a veritable war trophy.
The original is today housed in the Camerino dei Confirmati, while the public can view a copy on display in a room of the Torre della Ghirlandina, where “the Bucket was soon to be locked away, in the tallest tower it remains to this day, up on high the trophy hangs bound, by a great chain nailed far off the ground”, as Tassoni writes in his poem.