Two Italian cities fought a war partly sparked by a stolen wooden bucket

In 1325, soldiers from Modena raided a well in rival Bologna and carried off an oak bucket as a trophy, feeding tensions between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions that soon erupted into open war. Modena won the decisive battle, and the bucket — real, and still displayed in a Modena tower today — was later immortalised in a 17th-century mock-heroic poem.

— Alessandro Tassoni, La secchia rapita (satirical epic, 1622); historical accounts of the Guelph–Ghibelline wars, War of the Bucket — Battle of Zappolino, 1325