According to the recipe safeguarded by the tradition, pages and pages have been written about the Tortellino, nowadays pride and delight of the Modenese and Bolognese gastronomy, a tasty and full dish thanks to the nutritional richness and to the authenticity of the ingredients. Of course, the oldest and still unsolved question, despite the various suppositions and claims, regards the origins of this dish. For centuries, the Bolognese and the Modenese have been proudly quarrelling over who invented the TORTELLINO.  The first documents on its birth, go as far back as the Crusades in the 11th century when the story says that a chef invented this particularly rich-tasting dish in honour of the Bolognese crusaders, so as to instil in their souls stronger devotion and love toward their madrepatria. Hints of the recipe for Tortelli or Tortellini can be found in a book from 1300 in which mentions of the "torteleti de enula" can be found. Also the Boccaccio in the Decamerone mentions Ravioli cooked in Capon broth. Mentions of this dish can be found in literature from every century. According to other sources, the Tortellino was created by the chef of the antipope Alessandro the 5th, at the beginning of the 14th century, in order to whet the appetite of the Pope who suffered from a precarious state of health. Sources from the 16th century confirm that this dish was a well-known Bolognese speciality meant for the affluent classes and given to the people only on particular occasions. The "Secchia Rapita" (T.N. the stolen bucket) (1622), dates back to the mock-heroic poem by Alessandro Tassoni, one of the most important references to the presumed Bolognese origins of the Tortellino, in the following verses "l'Oste ch'era Guercio e bolognese, imitando di Venus il bellico (ombelico), l'arte di fare il tortellino apprese", (E.N. the host who was cross-eyed and Bolognese, copying Venus's navel (belly button), the art of Tortellino he learnt) the author alludes the legend according to which a host was inspired by the shape of Venus's belly button in order to make the first sample. In return, in the 19th century the parody of the "Secchia Rapita" by Giuseppe Ceri links the birth of the Tortellino to the city of Modena in Castelfranco Emilia, re-reading in a parochial tone the same myth of Venus: it is told that three divinities, Mars, Bacchus and Venus are inserted into wartime vicissitudes between Modena and Bologna supporting the latter. While Bacchus and Mars follow the alternation of the battles, Venus calls the host of the inn, in which they are staying (in Castelfranco) and the host seeing the belly button of the goddess is inspired into reproducing it using flaky pastry. In fact, in Castelfranco Emilia, every year the birth of the Tortellino is commemorated and there is the Saint Nicholas festival, during which there is a short theatrical performance showing the host peeping through the keyhole of a door and scrutinising the belly button of a young girl. Other extravagant stories link the shape of the Tortellino to the belly button of Helen of Troy, other stories refer to Etruscun or Roman-Greek origins of the "Laganae or Laganon" (flaked pastry), folded in the shape of sacks which are rudimental archetypes of our Tortellino. The father of the modern recipe of the Tortellino is the gastronomist, from Romagna, Pellegrino Artusi who seems to have learnt the art of the Tortellino from a Bolognese Tortellini maker. The spread of Tortellini around the world is owed to the Bertagni brothers who found a way of keeping the product fresh in order to undertake long journeys. In 1904 and in 1906 the Bertagni Tortellini were shown at the fair of Los Angeles and they acquired world-wide acclaim and esteem. Nowadays there is even a "Tortellino Association", which is a group constituted by numerous chosen members whose objective is to protect intact the tradition and the original recipe. During these meetings, the participants wear red suits and gold hats shaped like Tortellini and they wear a ribbon with a gold Tortellino on it around their necks. From 1974 the traditional Tortellini recipe has been deposited at the Chamber of Commerce in Bologna, carefully chosen by the Bolognese delegation of the Italian Academy of cuisine and by the "Scholarly brotherhood of the Tortellino". Regardless of any dispute and kind of claim, nowadays this dish represents a symbol of the Emilian cuisine renowned and appreciated all over the world, incomparable for its wise mixture of ingredients and for its particular and unique and shape.