Italian resort abandons region

ROME - The village of Cortina d'Ampezzo, home to one of the world's most famous ski resorts, voted Monday to break away from Italy's Veneto region and join a region where German and a local dialect predominate.

More than three-quarters of votes cast in a two-day referendum supported joining Trentino-Alto Adige, said the government of Belluno, the province that has contained Cortina. More than half of the 6,828 eligible adults voted, making the result binding.

Advocates of Ladin, a local tongue spoken in the Dolomite mountains that has ties to ancient Latin and Rhaetic, collected enough signatures to force a referendum on the issue.

Cortina, which hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics, is one of the most exclusive mountain resortsin Europe, attracting fur-wearing jet-setters and celebrities from all over the world. Action scenes from the 1981 James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only were shot on Cortina's slopes.

The shift from Veneto, where Venice is located, to the self-governing mountain region further north may also bring economic advantages. Trentino-Alto Adige, or Sudtirol as the region is known in German, enjoys administrative independence and tax breaks as one of Italy's five autonomous regions.

Veneto has been the epicenter of a movement seeking to split up Italy. Umberto Bossi, the founder and leader of the Northern League party, won the most support in this region for his campaign in the 1990s to separate the richer north from the economically depressed southern part of the country.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 10/30/2007

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