“Inspired by the nationalist aspirations of Scotland and Catalonia, pro-independence campaigners will hold a mass rally in the heart of the lagoon city on Saturday, calling for an urgent referendum to be held on the issue.  Indipendenza Veneta, a newly-founded pro-independence movement, says it expects several thousand people to turn up for the rally.  They will be ferried across the Grand Canal in gondolas to deliver a ‘declaration of independence’ to the headquarters of the Veneto regional government.  Activists want to carve out a new country in north-eastern Italy. The ‘Repubblica Veneta’ would encompass about five million people.”