It was raining in Venice on Sunday as I made my way to noon Mass at St Mark’s. A small group huddled under gold and red flags bearing the Lion of St Mark was standing about in the colonnade at the west end of the square. I thought at the time that they were Italian tourists sheltering from the thunderstorm that swept past, but I realised later that they were damply celebrating the referendum result said to show 89 per cent of the people of the Veneto to be in favour of a Venetian republic independent from Italy.Not that President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy was going to be sending amphibious craft up the Grand Canal to secure the breakaway region – partly because the 88-year- old politician, though also a former member of the Communist Party, is no Putin, but more importantly,