The battle of Zappolino (1325), better known as the battle of the Kidnapped Secchia , was one of the most impressive pitched battles of the Middle Ages with thousands of deaths:on the one hand the Ghibelline Modena , loyal to the Emperor , on the other the Guelph Bologna , loyal to the papacy .
About 35,000 infantry took part and 4000 knights and more than 2000 men lost their lives on the battlefield .
In 1296 the Bolognesi they had invaded the lands of Bazzano and Savignano , effectively taking them away from the Modenese, thanks also to the support of Pope Boniface VIII . In fact, he issued in 1298 a Lodo with which he recognized the Guelph possession of the castles of the aforementioned localities.
On the other hand Bologna he had broadened his territorial aims, having to face the tumultuous demographic increase consequent to the fame of his university. Ghibellini therefore enemies of Bologna and enemies of the Pope .
The clash took place on November 15, 1325 towards sunset and saw about 30,000 infantry deployed and 2,000 horsemen for the Bolognesi , against 5,000 infantry and 2,000 horsemen for the Modenese, many of them of Germanic origin and therefore quite experts in military art.
I Ghibellini were lined up roughly on the plateau where the town of Ziribega stands today , while the Guelphs they were located at the beginning of the slope from the Bersagliera climbs towards Zappolino , called ” Prati di Soletto “, With the castle behind them.
The Bolognese they did not have much time available to organize the troops, having hastily recalled them from Bazzano and from Ponte Sant 'Ambrogio , where the Modenese had attracted them with some stratagems; the aim was to stop the enemy's advance towards Monteveglio , where they were trying to recapture the castle, and probably to defend the stronghold of Zappolino .
The battle was very short, about a couple of hours, but ended with the terrible defeat of the Bolognese army.
The dead were more than two thousand .
The people of Modena reached the gates of Bologna , destroying the castles of Crespellano as they passed , Zola , Samoggia , Anzola , Castelfranco , Piumazzo and the Reno lock near Casalecchio, which allowed, as today, the diversion of the river waters towards the city.
However, they did not attempt the siege of the city, but limited themselves to mocking the defeated for a few days and in the end they returned to Modena carrying a bucket stolen from a well as a trophy , still existing under a manhole outside Porta S. Felice.
Following this episode and perhaps also thanks to the poem by Tassoni which narrates the events in a heroic-comic key, this event is now called " The battle of the kidnapped bucket ”.
A few months later, in January 1326 , the peace signed by the two parties saw the return of the lands and castles conquered by the Ghibellines to the Bolognese, probably in exchange for money, passed into the hands of Passerino Bonacolsi .
The sacrifice of two thousand men was therefore completely useless. Heroes, who without the vile treaty following the clash, would have had the honors of history.
In the battle of Zappolino there were no Modenese against Bolognese, but Ghibellines against Guelphs, so much so that the same leader of the Modenese Guelphs, Albertino Boschetti , was killed in that battle at the hands of his fellow citizens.
Now the bucket is kept in the Torre della Ghirlandina of the Municipal Building of Modena .
And the well?
This is no longer there, but if you go to Saffi street , at the height of n. number 34 , a hundred meters outside San Felice , almost in the middle of the road you will notice a trap door which, if it were not a little bigger than usual, would seem that of a simple sewer.
They are two travertine slabs that grip two other semicircular ones, on which is reported in the center, an inscription, very worn by the continuous passage of cars, but which indicates that there was once the " well of the Secchia Rapita "