UPSTAGE left on the main platform at the Northern League's third federal congress, which opened in Milan yesterday, stood a 20-foot high oil painting depicting a space ship blasting off from a platform constructed in a marshy swamp. The space ship, of course, is called Padania and the marshy swamp represents modern Italy.
The Northern League's three-day congress this weekend represents another stage in the seemingly inexorable long march that has taken the political party led by the outspoken Senator Umberto Bossi on a 15-year odyssey from a small-scale local protest movement to a national political force that demands nothing less than independence for Padania.
This last named state, which exists only in the minds of Northern League supporters, would theoretically encompass all the rich industrialised regions of northern and central Italy, including Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli- Giulia, Tuscany and Umbria.
This congress comes at a delicate moment in the party's ongoing evolution. Since it confounded its many critics by picking up 10.1 per cent at the general election last March, the Northern League and Mr Bossi appear to have lost their way.
Seeming publicity stunts such as the formation of the "Provisional Government of Padania", the institution of a "Parliament of Padania" in Mantova and, most spectacularly, a "secessionist" march along the banks of the River Po last September have all provided photo opportunities, but little lasting political achievement.
This congress is intended, above all, to remind the faithful that the fight goes on and that on April 20th the league will hold its own independence referendum. Mr Bossi intends to remind friend and foe alike that his Padania rocket-ship is on stand-by, ready for blast-off.
Furthermore, the congress serves to remind the rest of the swampland - Italy - that the Northern League is no longer interested in coalition or compromise with the existing mainstream political forces.
This is the congress that will formally ratify the league's evolution from federalism to secession.
Speaker after speaker expressed support for a northern state freed from the influence of corrupt, Mafia-ridden Rome governments capable only of charging ever higher taxes with which to subsidise the underdeveloped south.
One lawyer and congress delegate, Mr Marco Brigliadori, probably spoke for many of his fellow militants when he told The Irish Times. "The rest of Italy doesn't want to hear. .. but there is an avalanche about to roll here. We're different people up here, we're hard-working Ambrosian Catholics, almost Protestant, while down south they're practically Islamic. They just want to sit back and wait for hand-outs."