La secchia rapita

Cover of the first edition of La Secchia rapita by Tassoni, printed in the maps Ronciglione in 1624

La secchia rapita (The stolen bucket) is a mock-heroic epic poem by Alessandro Tassoni based on the real life event, the War of the Bucket which was first published in 1622 (see 1622 in poetry); it tells of a war between the Italian cities of Modena and Bologna over the possession of a wooden bucket that later influenced Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock. "La secchia rapita" is also the name of a comic opera by Salieri, first performed in Vienna in 1772; one of the arias from the work was recorded by Cecilia Bartoli on her Salieri album.

The stolen bucket, inside the Ghirlandina Tower

References

• Cambridge History of Italian Literature ed. Brand and Pertile (1996) p.310
• The Salieri Album booklet notes to the recording by Cecilia Bartoli (Decca, 2003)

External links

• Full Italian text at Liber Liber