Anyone who’s ever taken an English literature course in an American high school likely knows the classic Edgar Allan Poe poem “The Bells,” which, among other turns of phrase, celebrates “the tintinnabulation that so musically wells .. from the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.”

Those lines, however, were written in mid-19th century Baltimore. In Italy, where it’s basically impossible to find a square inch of space that isn’t with easy acoustical reach of a nearby church tower, yet where levels of religious practice are declining while cultural diversity expands, the constant tintinnabulation of the bells isn’t uniformly a cause for delight.