Unity of action celestial machinery, races in conflict, contrasted heroes, the wavering chance of war, episodes, bards, heroines, and love subordinated to the martial motive--all these features of the epic he viewed through the distorting medium of his comic art.
In the days of the second Lombard League, when Frederick II.

was fighting a losing battle with the Church, Guelf Bologna came into grim conflict with her Ghibelline neighbor Modena.

The territory of these two cities formed the _champ clos_ of a duel in which the forces of Germany and nearly all Italy took part; and in one engagement, at Fossalta, the Emperor's heir, King Enzo of Sardinia, was taken captive.

How he passed the rest of his days, a prisoner of the Bolognese, and how he begat the semi-royal brood of Bentivogli, is matter of history and legend.

During this conflict memorable among the many municipal wars of Italy in the middle ages, it happened that some Modenese soldiers, who had pushed their way into the suburbs of Bologna, carried off a bucket and suspended it as a trophy in the bell-tower of the cathedral, where it may still be seen.