In southern Italy there is a city carved into the rock, where people have lived for thousands of years. In the middle of the twentieth century some fifteen thousand people still lived in caves alongside their animals, and the whole country called it a national disgrace. A 1952 law emptied the Sassi; decades later those same caves became World Heritage and a European Capital of Culture. Twelve stops between the square above the abyss, the underground cathedral of water, the facades of Sasso Barisano, the church where the dead were seated to dry, the cathedral of the Madonna whose float is torn apart every year, the sculpture museum in the caves, the cave house of a 1950s family, the church inside a crag, the square facing the ravine, the nuns' convent in the rock, the floor of the gravina and the viewpoint of the Neolithic villages. Approximate audio duration: 20 minutes.
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Matera: la ciudad de cuevas que pasó de vergüenza nacional a Patrimonio de la Humanidad
En el sur de Italia hay una ciudad excavada en la roca, donde el ser humano vive desde hace miles de años. A mediados del siglo XX, unas quince mil personas seguían viviendo en cuevas junto a sus animales, y el país entero la llamó una vergüenza nacional. Una ley de 1952 vació los Sassi; décadas después, esas mismas cuevas fueron Patrimonio de la Humanidad y Capital Europea de la Cultura. Doce paradas entre la plaza sobre el abismo, la catedral de agua subterránea, las fachadas del Sasso Barisano, la iglesia donde los muertos se sentaban a secar, la catedral de la Virgen cuyo carro se destroza cada año, el museo de esculturas en las cuevas, la casa gruta de una familia de 1950, la iglesia dentro de un peñasco, la plaza frente al barranco, el convento de las monjas en la roca, el fondo de la gravina y el mirador de las aldeas neolíticas. Duración aproximada de audio: 20 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~20 min of audio · 2.76 km on foot (~40 min walking) · about 1 h in total
You are in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, the living room of modern Matera. There are cafes, baroque churches, people strolling. It all looks like an ordinary southern Italian town.
Now lean over the railing. Below opens an amphitheatre of honey-coloured stone: houses piled on houses, stairways, rooftops that serve as the street for the house above. That is Sasso Barisano, one of Matera's two Sassi.
The Sassi are not houses built on the rock. They are houses dug into it. Matera's stone is a soft calcarenite, locally called tufo, that can be cut with simple tools. Behind many of those facades a cave…
2
A Cathedral of Water Beneath Your Feet
Beneath the paving of this very square lies a vast void. It is called the Palombaro Lungo, a cistern carved into the rock with walls about sixteen metres high.
It could hold around five million litres of water. Some call it the cathedral of water, because inside, the stone vaults and pillars look like the nave of a church.
No river reaches the town of Matera. Water was the great problem. That is why every house in the Sassi had its own cistern, and channels cut into the rock guided rain from the roofs into the tanks.
The Palombaro Lungo was the monumental version of the same idea. It was en…
3
Facades That Hide Caves
You are inside Sasso Barisano. It takes its name from facing northwest, towards the road to Bari. It is the larger of the two Sassi and the one with the most built stone facades.
Look closely at any house. The front, with its door and window, is masonry. But if you could step inside, you would see the room keeps going back, carved into the rock. The facade is just the lid on a cave.
Many houses were grouped around a shared courtyard, the vicinato. There stood the common cistern, the oven, the children at play. It was a collective way of life: several families helping and keeping an eye on on…
4
Where the Dead Were Seated to Dry
In front of you is the church of San Pietro Barisano. The facade dates from the eighteenth century and looks like that of any baroque church. But behind it hides a church carved into the rock, the largest in the Sassi.
Its origins go back to the Middle Ages. Over the centuries it grew, always deeper into the stone: naves, altars and chapels cut from the rock, with traces of frescoes and statues.
The most unsettling part is below. In the crypt there are niches carved into the wall, each with a seat and a hole. Dead priests were seated there so that the body's fluids could drain away before th…
5
The Madonna Whose Float Is Torn Apart Every Year
You are at the highest point of the Civita, facing the cathedral. It is the only great building in the Sassi that was not dug out: it was built right on top, to be seen from every side.
It went up in the thirteenth century in the Apulian Romanesque style and was consecrated in 1270. Look at the rose window on the facade: carved figures surround it. The bell tower stands more than fifty metres tall.
It is dedicated to the Madonna della Bruna, Matera's patron. Every 2 July the city honours her with a procession that ends in an extraordinary way.
The image is carried through the streets on a t…
6
Sculpture in the Belly of the Rock
You are in front of Palazzo Pomarici, a seventeenth-century noble palace on the edge of Sasso Caveoso. Since 2006 it has housed MUSMA, the Museum of Contemporary Sculpture.
What matters is not only what is on show, but where. The palace has a built part and a carved part: rooms, passages and old cellars cut into the rock. Inside, among walls of tufo, stand sculptures from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries.
The building shows something essential about Matera: the Sassi were not only homes for the poor. There were palaces, convents and grand houses too, using the rock as pantry, sta…
7
One Family, One Mule, One Room
You are in Vico Solitario, in front of a cave house set up as a museum. It is furnished as many homes in the Sassi were before the evacuations of the 1950s.
Step inside in your mind. A single room carved into the rock. At the back, the mule's manger. In a corner, the dung heap, collected to fertilise the fields. Under the floor, the cistern of rainwater.
The bed stands high on trestles, away from the damp floor. The hens slept underneath. The youngest children sometimes slept in the drawers of the chest. A family could have many children.
Living with animals was not carelessness. The mule w…
8
A Church Inside a Crag
Look up. That huge isolated crag in the middle of Sasso Caveoso is called Monterrone. On its tip stands a cross, and inside it, a church.
This is Santa Maria de Idris. Only the facade is built: the rest is carved inside the rock. The name probably comes from the Greek Odegitria, the Virgin who shows the way, a devotion widespread in the Byzantine world.
An inner passage connects it to an older church, San Giovanni in Monterrone. Its walls keep frescoes from different periods, from the Middle Ages onwards. Many are worn by damp, but saints and faces can still be made out.
For centuries this …
9
The Law That Emptied the Sassi
You are in the square of San Pietro Caveoso. The church, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, has medieval origins and a baroque facade. It is one of the few in the Sasso not carved into the rock. Behind it drops the ravine of the gravina.
After the war, what Carlo Levi had described reached national politics. The Sassi became a symbol of the backwardness of the South. The Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti visited in 1948, and in 1950 came the prime minister, Alcide De Gasperi.
In May 1952 Parliament passed a special law for the clearance and renewal of the Sassi. The idea was to move people…
10
Nuns in the Rock
You are in front of Santa Lucia alle Malve, one of Matera's most important rock churches. From outside it looks like little more than a door in the rock.
In the Middle Ages it was home to a community of Benedictine nuns. Church, cells and shared rooms were all carved into this same rock face, on the edge of Sasso Caveoso.
Inside it keeps some of the city's finest frescoes, from the thirteenth century. Among them is a Virgin nursing the Child, an uncommon subject, along with saints such as Saint Lucy and Saint Michael.
The nuns left the grotto in the thirteenth century for a convent in the u…
11
The Canyon the Movies Chose
You are on the floor of the gravina, the canyon the Gravina stream cut into the limestone over thousands of years. On the far side rise the walls of the Murgia, pitted with dark holes: they are caves.
The gravina is Matera's reason for being. The soft walls made digging possible. The edge of the drop gave protection. And at the bottom ran water, however scarce and irregular.
The caves of the Murgia sheltered shepherds and hermits. Many of Matera's rock churches lie on the far side, inside the Murgia Materana Park, created in 1990 to protect this landscape.
This setting drew filmmakers. In 1…
12
From National Disgrace to European Capital
You are at the Murgia Timone viewpoint, across the gravina. Before you lies the whole view: the two Sassi, the Civita in between and the cathedral crowning it all. This is the image that went round the world.
This plateau is older than the city. Here archaeologists found Neolithic villages enclosed by ditches cut into the rock, and Bronze Age tombs. In the caves of the area there are even older traces of people.
Now look at the Sassi and think back over the whole walk. Caves lived in for millennia, a quarter that fell into decay, a book that exposed it, a law that emptied it in 1952. For dec…
How long does the "Matera: the Cave City That Went from National Disgrace to World Heritage" audio tour take?
It has about 20 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 2.76 km walking route (~40 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The City Hidden Beneath the City" (coordinates 40.6673, 16.6058). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Matera and pick "Matera: the Cave City That Went from National Disgrace to World Heritage". No account required to start.
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