It’s the early 14th century and northern Italy is in a continuous state of battles,
wars and feuds that have persisted for several centuries now.
The source of most of this discord is the divide between the two Italian factions each
supporting rivaled political claims by the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope.
The cities that support the pope are called Guelfs or the church party and the cities
that support the Holy Roman Empire are called Ghibellines or the imperial party.
If you want to find out more about the complicated political relationship between these two factions
watch my “””Empire vs The Papacy””” video.
During this politically divided time the bordering cities of Bologna and Modena, which where
natural rivals at the best of times, found themselves at opposing sides.
With Bologna being a starch church party supporter and Modena a starch imperial party supporter.
This meant that the already existing bad blood between the cities got drastically multiplied
by the outside influences of the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor.
Due to all this, the lands of Modena and Bologna became a constant bickering battleground of
opposing ideologies.
For example in 1249 after the Battle of Fossalta, in which both Modena and Bologna participated,
supporting their respective factions, the victorious Bolognese thought it would be funny
to launch a live donkey over the walls of Modena and so they did.
Humiliating the Modenese.
Continuing from there in 1296 Bologna managed to captured a few border towns from Modena
and the Pope quickly acknowledged the new holdings as core Bolognese territory.
But this wasn’t just a one sided conflict.
For example the leader of a starch pro empire leaning Mantua Passerino Bonacolsi also managed
to become the leader of Modena in 1308.
He was known as a loyal agent to the Emperor Luis the 4th himself and actively waged war
against the cities of Parma and Reggio both members of the church faction.
He also lead a bunch of retaliation raids in to the Bolognese territory.
These militant actions along with his loyalty to the emperor, got Passerino excommunicated
by the Pope, who promised to grant indulgences befit of a crusader if they harm Passerino
or his possessions.
Continuing on from there, not much change for most of the early 14th century, with Modena
and Bologna being continuously at each other's throats until 1325, when the feud escalated
in to an all out war.
It started off in July of that year, with Bolognese troops entering Modenese territory
and laying waste to border towns and fields.
In retaliation, Passerino used the Mantuan army and entered Bolognese territory besieging
the fortified stronghold of Monteveglio.
Monteveglio was a very important Bolognese fortress because it, along with Zappolino
protected the city from any direct seages.
This was due to the fact that if any army decided to besiege Bologna, they would be
vulnerable to a rear attack directed from these two fortresses.
Unfortunately for Passerino this also meant that Monteveglio was a very well fortified
stronghold due to its strategic importance.
However an interesting thing occurred when Passerino besieged the fortress.
It turned out that the ruler of Monteveglio was a secret supporter of the imperial party
and switched his allegiance when Passerino arrived.
Whether Passerino knew about this or not is unknown but now with Monteveglio in the hands
of the Imperial party, Zappolino was the last remaining fortress on the road to Bologna
and with that the die was cast for the next stage.
Passerino didn’t push deeper in to the Bolognese territory because A. he didn’t have enough
soldiers and B. he technically wasn’t at war with Bologna, yet.
Now it is at this point that most english sources including Wikipedia, militaryhistorynow,
amusing planet, logan productions, zepherus, qxire, real life lore, and many more will
tell you about the amusing way the war started.
Although to be fair to real life lore, he did delete his video after my mention of it
in the last video.
The story goes that during this tumultuous time, some Modenes soldiers managed to sneak
in to the center of Bologna.
Here they found a well with a bucket, which depending on what source you believe was either
a simple empty bucket or was filled with loot from the most recent Bolognese raid and put
on display in the center of town.
The Modenes soldiers naturally decide to steel this bucket, either as a symbol to humiliate
the Bolognese, or due to the possible loot that was stored in the bucket.
When the Bolognese found out about this, they were humiliated, angry, and asked the Modenese
to return the bucket.
When Modena refused to return the bucket.
Bologna declared war.
Now this would be a very entertaining and funny story, if it were true.
Sadly, it isn’t.
The best way I can put it, is that “The Idea of Modenes soldiers being able to get
in to the center of Bologna during this time, whether trying to infiltrate or not, is just
as ridiculous as the idea of Bologna having a bucket full of loot on display in the center
of the city.”
This story of a stolen a bucket being a catalyst for a declaration of war, was most likely
a misinterpretation of a 17th century poem about the war, combined with the fact that
the Modenes soldiers did steel a bucket during this war, but that definitely happened at
the end of the war not at the start.
So the actual reason for the declaration of war by Bologna was a combination of many things,
including internal politics, the taking of the Monteveglio by Passerino, the overarching
Empire vs the Papacy factions and the fact that Bologna knew they were able to raise
more men if they declared war right now, then Modena was.
And so, Bologna declared war.
Bologna was able to muster up around 20 to 30 thousand infantry and 2000 to 2500 cavalry
knights.
Modena on the other hand, had to ask for help from other pro imperial cities since they
didn’t have a big army.
In the end thanks to the help from Verona, Mantua and some Germanic cities, the Modenes
where able to muster up around 5 to 8 thousand infantry and roughly the same amount of cavalry
knights as Bologna.
However even though the Bolognese had a much larger force the composition of these two
armies was quite different.
The Bolognese infantry although much larger was ill equipped, inexperienced and over all
had low moral as a large portion of the soldiers were forced in to service.
The Modenes infantry on the other hand, was largely composed of trained retinue of the
various nobleman from the aforementioned cities.
They where highly skilled, experienced and well equipped.
When it comes to the cavalry knights, both sides where roughly on same footing with,
experience, equipment and training.
The first move of the war was by the Bolognese whom divided there army in to two.
One part of the army was set to besiege Monteveglio and the second part was ordered to prevent
the Modenes army from crossing the Panaro river.
At first this strategy seemed to have proved effective as the Modenes army was struggling
to get around the Bolognese defences.
However one night they devised a plan.
They faked an attack on a bridge down the stream which forced the Bolognese to redirect
more troops from the mountains.
Right after this the Modenes under the cover of night quickly moved most of their army
up the stream, leaving only small contingencies of soldiers along the bank of the river.
Then early dawn on November 15th the Modenes army appeared at the bank of the Panaro river
near Marano surprising the ill prepared Bolognese defenders that did not expect to fight most
of the Modenes army this far up in the mountains.
The bolognese defensive river line quickly shattered, and with the momentum on their
side the Modenese pushed all the way to Serravalle where they lit signal fires to let the remaining
soldiers guarding the river bank know the main army successfully crossed the river.
Ones regrouped the Modenes started to march towards the second most important Bolognese
forretress, Zappolino.
Bologna couldn’t afford to lose Zappolino specially with Monteveglio in Modenes hands
and so they lifted the siege of Monteveglio and ordered the entire army to regroup at
Zappolino.
With this order, the site of the deciding battle was set, at the end of the Castalleto
plateau by the foothill of the Zappolino fortress.
By the time both armies could see each other, it was already late in the day and there’s
no doubt that the soldiers on both sides were quite tired.
Usually at this point in most medieval wars the leaders would signal to build a camp and
wait till the next day to engage in a battle.
However, Modenes leaders were convinced the only way to defeat the superior Bolognese
numbers was to deal a quick surprising and decisive blow early in the war.
This combined with the Modenes momentum throughout the day and the fact that the Bolognese army
was not yet fully organize as more soldiers were still coming in.
Meant that Modena had to fight here and now if they ever hope to win.
At least that’s how they saw it.
This resulted in the fact that the battle itself started around 3:30 to 4 pm giving
only around 2 hours of usable daylight, after which if the Modenese didn’t score a decisive
victory they would have to do a long retreat as they were deep in Bolognese territory.
None the less this was a gamble they were willing to make.
And so with the sun behind them, they lined up on the plateau, with cavalry behind infantry
and started to march to the beat of the drums towards now hastily deployed Bolognese line.
As the setting sun glimmered off of the armor of the bolognese infantry which was a mass
of up to 30 thousands men pact title between the mountains and the volgolo stream, it became
clear that even though they had the higher ground and superior numbers they wouldn’t
be able to use that effectively in such a tight spot.
Suddenly the drums stopped ... and the Modenes infantry along with the cavalry charged straight
into the Bolognese line.
However what the Bolognese didn’t notice, was that part of the cavalry diverged from
the main group crossing the stream and going around a small nearby hill.
After which when they crossed the stream again, they suddenly emerged on the rear side of
the Bolognese army.
The Bolognese were caught by surprise and even though they tried to use their cavalry
to stop the rear attack, it was too late.
Seeing the enemy cavalry on their rear many Bolognese soldiers thought they got fully
encircled and started to retreat from the battle.
Breaking the lines and creating a full panic amongst rest of the troops.
However trapped in a valley with the only escape route now being blocked by the enemy
cavalry meant that most of the soldiers had to try climbing up the hill to the Zappolino
fortress.
2000 thousand of them didn’t make it, with about 500 more dying during the battle itself.
The modenes on the other hand suffered only around 500 casualties.
The battle lasted less than 2 hours and Modena had it’s decisive victory, with the remaining
Bolognese infantry scattering around the countryside and the cavalierly being chased back all the
way to Bologna.
After this victory, the following day Modena besieged and destroyed several fortifications
plus the locks on the Rena river.
When the army finally reached the walls of Bologna they made camp but didn’t attempt
to seage the city.
Instead they basically through a 3 day long celebration party and forced the Bolognese
to watch.
After the three days and with I imagine a terrible hangover the Modenes withdrew back
to their city but not before some of the soldiers decided it would be funny to steel a bucket
from a well outside of the city walls.
Why did they do this?
Well you see it was symbolic.
The Modenes where skilled at making artesian wells, which are wells that use the physics
of liquids to basically work as a quote unquote fountain.
Meaning you don’t need a bucket to get the water out.
Bolognese however didn’t know how to make these artesian wells and so they had traditional
wells with buckets.
So the Modenes soldiers stealing the bucket, where basically saying, “ha look at those
dumb Bolognese, they can’t even get some water without a bucket”.
According to tradition, this symbolic bucket was kept at the Modenes Cathedral after which,
in modern times it was replaced by a replica and the orginal was transferred to the City
hall.
Now it is debated whether even this original bucket in the city hall is truly the bucket
from 1325 or just a very old symbolic replica.
As far as I know there has been no carbon dating done on the bucket but at the same
time there hasn’t been any reliable source that would cast suspicion on the originality
of the bucket.
So far now it is probably safe to say that the bucket in the city hall is original.
After these events not much more happened in the war and a few months later in 1326
a peace treaty was signed.
This peace treaty basically stated that Bologna will pay heavy war reparations to Modena if
Modena returned the conquered territory.
And so the war ended as it started with the Status Quo unchanged.
If you want to know more about the battle of Zappolino and the war of the bucket and
can read Italian, I highly recommend the book The Battle of Zappolino and the kidnapped
bucket, sadly it’s only in italian, but it is most likely the best source on the subject
outhere.
For those who don’t follow me on twitter, I sadly had to skip the April video as I was
too busy but now we should be back on track with one video a month as always.
And not to spoil anything but the June and July videos are going to be big ones, so stick
around, for history.