Hardly any European city has turned its reputation around as completely as Matera – from “national disgrace” to Capital of Culture.
The caves at the edge of the Gravina have been inhabited since prehistoric times; Matera counts as one of the longest continuously settled cities in the world. Over millennia the settlement grew in the rock, supplemented by cisterns, terraces and churches.
The twentieth century
As the population grew, conditions in the Sassi became untenable. The caves were damp and dark, people and animals shared the space, disease spread. Carlo Levi described the conditions in Christ Stopped at Eboli; after the war Matera became a political issue.
The resettlement
In the 1950s the Italian state decided to clear the Sassi. The inhabitants moved into newly built districts on the edge of town – a deep rupture that dissolved the old neighbourhoods. The caves were left empty.
The turn
Only in the 1980s did the return begin: restorations, new uses, and slowly tourism as well. In 1993 UNESCO added the Sassi and the park of the rock churches to the World Heritage list. In 2019 Matera was European Capital of Culture.
Matera on film
The city has repeatedly served as a backdrop for biblical and historical subjects – from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St Matthew through Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ to a chase in the James Bond film No Time to Die. More on Matera on film.
Read on
- The Sassi di Matera – the city this history is about
- Casa Noha – the same story as a projection
- The cave dwellings of the Sassi – how people lived here
