Craftsmen skilled in the time-honoured art of foundries are a disappearing breed, says Armando Marinelli, co-owner with his brother Pasquale of the business in the Molise region of southern Italy.

"The problem is finding the manpower," he said, adding: "Lots of young people come but then get bored."

The Marinellis produced their first bell in 1339 at the family workshop nestled in the Appenine hills. "But the village of Agnone has a tradition of foundries that dates back 10 centuries," said Marinelli.

The dark and dusty workshop is anything but pretentious. Four craftsmen ply their trade amid piles of clay, charcoal and wood, stirring glowing embers on which small grey moulds are drying before being used to form miniature bells.

For whom the bell tolls

"The Vatican gave us the title of pontifical foundry in 1924, and the (Roman Catholic) Church today accounts for 90 percent of our orders," Marinelli said. "Our biggest bell was created for the Jubilee in 2000: five tonnes and six metres (20 feet) in circumference."

The foundry produces about 50 bells a year, "sometimes fewer when there are larger ones," veteran craftsman Antonio Delli Quadri said, standing in a room stacked from floor to ceiling with plaster moulds of Madonnas, saints and decorative friezes.

The artisans use wax to transfer the designs onto a brick "core" slathered with clay, slightly smaller than the bell to be forged.

Another layer of clay is applied to form a "false bell."

After this hardens, the wax inside is melted, leaving the imprint of the design in negative on the inside of the false bell in the technique known as "lost wax."

Molten bronze, at a temperature of 1,200 degrees Celsius (2,200 Fahrenheit), is poured into the space to form the bell.

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