Matera, Italy, And The Spectacular Sassi (Complete Guide) – The Urge To Wander

Matera, Italy, is a destination unlike any other. A city of caves hewn from rock and inhabited since before recorded history. A monochrome medley of stairways and rooftops “where the living sleep beneath the dead”.

It is the remarkable story of Matera’s rebirth that lured us back to Italy for our third visit. The much repeated story of exiled author and physician Carlo Levi, whose vivid account of appalling living conditions in parts of Southern Italy shook the world. A world oblivious, until then, to the abject poverty concealed beneath the twin districts of cave houses referred to as the Sassi of Matera.

In Levi’s 1945 best selling documentary novel titled Christ Stopped at Eboli, his sister describes Matera as “a schoolboy’s idea of Dante’s Inferno”. She speaks of dark holes in which people lived alongside dogs, sheep, goats and pigs. Of naked children with swollen eyelids. Of faces yellow with malaria and bodies wasted to skeletons. “I have never in all my life seen such a picture of poverty.” The political scandal that ensued led to the evacuation of Matera and the re-settling of inhabitants in public housing in the modern part of town.

The derelict caves were, at first, taken over by squatters. Then the artists and businesses moved in and breathed new life into the Sassi. From Italy’s ‘national shame’ to UNESCO Heritage Site and European Culture Capital (2019) has been a dramatic turnaround for Matera.

It feels weird to view the extraordinarily atmospheric Sassi in that historical context today. And to find many of the hovels those hapless people left behind converted to chic boutique hotels. Matera feels different from cities like Dubrovnik, for example, that cater purely to tourists. Here, the revival is aimed at preserving its legacies. For the people as much as for the visitors now thronging the Sassi.

The idea of profiting from misfortune is still a bit discomfiting. Because the ‘shame’ is almost the highlight of a guided walk through town. “They sloshed their chamber pots into the streets…imagine the stench!”. Marketing aside, and regardless of lingering questions about whether displaced residents share in the equity*, the resurrection is impressive. And at the centre of it is the topographical signature that is the Sassi of Matera, evoking the sorrow of its history and the resilience of the people.

The Sassi is magical day or night. Its cave dwellings cling dramatically to slopes of the twin depressions along the ravine carved by the Gravina River: the spruced up Sasso Barisano in the north and its scruffier sibling, Sasso Caveoso to its south. The caves across the gorge are believed to have been continuously inhabited for over 7000 years!

The steep terrain is exhausting to explore. The panoramas you stumble upon at every turn is the reward. They give ‘breathtaking’ a whole new meaning.

The vertical stacking isn’t unique to this city. The caves behind the masonry facades are. As are the graves on the topmost surfaces: porous rock that form the roofs of living spaces beneath! I failed to ask if the strange funeral practice of ‘draining’ corpses in the church crypt might be connected to the burial locations.

Rising steeply between the two districts with a Romanesque cathedral crowning the summit, is the medieval Civita (city). The flat western part that separates the Sassi and the Civita from modern Matera is the (post medieval) Piano (plateau).

The classical palazzos, churches and piazzas are all on higher ground in the (relatively) newer sections. The most significant among them is the 17th century Palazzo Lanfranchi, now the National Museum Of Medieval and Modern Art.

But we aren’t here to admire medieval buildings. It is the rugged spaces of worship carved into the bowels of the Sassi that we find more evocative of the spirit of Matera. The much eroded art within is naive, flat with fixed staring eyes. Many still retain touches of pagan worship in their iconography and funeral traditions (details in the rock-churches section below).

Wondering why visuals of Matera feel vaguely Biblical? We’ve been conditioned into believing the city resembles (ancient) Jerusalem! The Gospel According To Matthew by Pier Paolo Pasolini was one of the first religious themed movies set in Matera. Bruce Beresford’s King David, The Omen (2006) and the fifth movie adaptation of Ben Hur are some of the others. The best known, and the one that first catapulted Matera into the world tourist stage, is Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. There’s even a Passion Trail that leads visitors to locations of key scenes.

Matera was also the obvious choice for the adaptation of Carlo Levi’s damning memoir. The title, incidentally, refers to the despair in the (then) squalid region. “Christ never came this far, nor did time, nor the individual soul, nor hope.” 

Would Levi, now buried in Aliano where he spent a year in exile for his anti-fascist activism, have approved of the social and political changes triggered by his book? That’s a thought that keeps recurring long after my return from Matera.

*I understand a large part of the old town is owned by the municipality of Matera and can only be leased. The few properties that are sold outright are bound by strict conservation guidelines in their remodelling. Many of the businesses are run by Materan citizens who had migrated out and decided to return with its changing fortunes. Not sure if they were former residents of the Sassi. Most of the tourist guides we encountered claim they are and recount stories of growing up in the caves.

Read on for a complete guide to the Città dei Sassi (plus a spectacular bonus video at the end).

IMPORTANT: LATEST TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS AND ENTRY REQUIREMENTS FOR ITALY

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COMPLETE MATERA TRAVEL GUIDE

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