The movement launched by four little-known youths says the anti-immigration League party led by Matteo Salvini represents hate and exclusion.
Some 15,000 people attended a rally in Bologna on Saturday, compared with around 5,000 who showed up for a League rally there the same day.
"We think the ideas propagated by the League are unacceptable," Paolo Ranzani, a photographer with the Sardine Movement, said on Facebook.
In Modena on Monday more than 7,000 activists, singing an anti-fascist anthem, protested Salvini's campaign to wrest control of the wealthy leftist bastion of Emilia-Romagna in January regional elections.
The sardine has become a symbol of protest against Salvini, a former interior minister.
Polls show that the right-wing coalition led by the League is building in strength in the north after winning a historic victory in regional polls in central Umbria, which had been led by the left for half a century.
"But sardines are strong and can become a huge wave, a tsunami," another supporter said on Facebook, where the group's page is titled "The Sardines' Archipelago".
New protests have been called in the northern cities of Reggio Emilia, Rimini and Parma, where Salvini has also planned rallies.
A Sardines founder, 32-year-old Mattia Santori, said on Facebook that a protest was also planned in Milan, a League stronghold.
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