NORTHERN separatist trouble is once more on the horizon. This morning sees the opening of the trial of the eight "soldiers" of the "Serenissima" (Most Serene Republic of Venice) who seized the Campanile in St Mark's Square, Venice, 12 days ago.
That surreal "occupation" lasted little more than seven hours and ended peacefully, with nobody injured and not a shot fired.
The eight "separatists" hardly seemed like Hizbullah guerrillas with their one automatic rifle, roll of salami, two bottles of wine and a converted tractor-cum-armoured car.
At first glance, the whole business seems like pure Opera Buffo. A recent opinion poll found that 39.4 per cent of Italians believe the separatists to be either stupid and ignorant or mentally unbalanced, while only 4 per cent considered them to be "revolutionaries".
This morning, however, the separatists face an imposing range of possible charges, ranging from sedition and terrorist conspiracy through to kidnapping, trespassing and illegal possession of firearms.
In theory, they could even get life sentences. In practice, they will probably get much less, while this morning the trial seems sure to be immediately adjourned.
Although the eight men on trial are not members of Senator Umberto Bossi's Northern League, their futile gesture appears like nothing less than an expression of a widespread Northern discontent that has proved a fruitful political constituency for Mr Bossi throughout the last decade. (Senator Bossi condemned the Venice raid).
While the rest of Italy has looked on with a mixture of incredulity and contempt, Mr Bossi has ranted on about corrupt, Mafia-ridden Rome government labelling it inefficient and overly-bureaucratic and describing it as "a parasite" which bleeds the industrious north to feed the lazy south.
While liberal-minded Italians have been appalled by Senator Bossi's apparent racism, the northern leader has developed and maintained a steady following. One year ago, 3,777,786 Italians (more than the entire population of the Republic of Ireland) voted Northern League, giving the party 10.1 per cent of the vote, with 59 deputies and senators.
For most of the last decade, Senator Bossi's rallying cry has been federalism. In the last year, he has moved on to secession, at least in theory.
On Sunday, he intends to test his supporters' mood by holding a "Padanian independence" referendum which will ask voters to say "yes" or "no" to an independent Padania, and which could also provide another classic example of the senator's ability to flourish in the grey area between political provocation and illegality.
"Padania" might sound like more comic opera but it too represents something deadly serious. Padania, of course, is an invented term, coined by Senator Bossi and taken from the Padano plain through which the River Po flows on its long journey right across northern Italy.
Effectively, Padania, as the Northern League understands it, now means all of northern Italy down as far as Perugia and Assisi in Umbria - in other words the entire industrial heartland of the Italian economy.
Neutral observers would suggest that there is no obvious linguistic, cultural or historical reason for arguing that regions as diverse as Piedmont, Ligurin, Lombardy, Friuli-Giulin, Veneto etc could claim a single, separatist identity. The League faithful beg to differ.
At last February's "Third Federal Congress" in Milan, League delegates and supporters went out of their way to explain to The Irish Times their sense of separate identity.
A Milan-based computer technician, Gianfranco Porelli, spoke for many: "Look, Italy comprises three different races - Celts or Gauls in the north, Etrusco-Romans in the centre and Greeks in the south. We're different and there's nothing we can do about it.
"We represent the industrial strength of the country, whereas down south - what have they ever exported? You know yourself, the only thing southerners have ever exported is organised crime, the Mafia.
"We're Europeans, whereas they're practically Arab or African down there. When I hear a Neapolitan singing O Sole Mio, it's like listening to Arab warble or chant.
"They depend on us and without us, they'd be at the level of Albania."
Whether Senator Bossi actually believes in his own creation as strongly as his supporters remains to be seen.
There has always been the suspicion that his call for "secession" was just a case of upping the stakes in order to win federalist concessions. From his viewpoint, Sunday's vote is nicely timed.
At the very moment that Italy's centre-left government is attempting to persuade the Northern League to drop its policy of virtual abstention (in particular from the crucial Constitutional Reforms Commission presided over by the Democratic Left leader, Mr Massimo D'Alema), Senator Bossi hopes to pull off another publicity stunt, persuading more than 1.3 million supporters to turn out and vote.
Sunday's vote is intended to announce the forthcoming end of Italian unity. Ironically, rather than the dissolution of Italy, it could represent an initial step along the road to a more federalist and stable Italy.