In Matera church building can be read as a sequence. First people cut into the rock, then they built in front of it, finally they built over it. Many churches in the upper town stand on an older rock chamber you cannot see from outside – and sometimes only notice inside on second glance.
The three layers
Seeing the city’s churches in this order tells you more than a tour arranged by convenience:
- Cut from the rock. The rock churches – no stone was set, only taken away. Pillars stand where material had to be left.
- Built in front. Churches like San Pietro Barisano, which look like an ordinary building from outside and reach deep into the rock behind.
- Built over. Baroque buildings of the upper town such as San Francesco d’Assisi, beneath which an older rock church lies.
The cathedral
The Cattedrale di Matera stands on the Civita, the rock spur between the two Sassi, and its bell tower can be recognised from almost anywhere. Its façade shows Apulian Romanesque, its interior was reworked in baroque – the break between the two is not clumsiness but the building’s history.
On the squares of the upper town
- Chiesa di San Domenico – Romanesque façade with a rose window, right on Piazza Vittorio Veneto.
- Chiesa del Purgatorio – skulls on the doorway, the most unusual façade in the city.
- Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista – one of Matera’s oldest masonry buildings.
- Chiesa di San Francesco d’Assisi – baroque over a rock church.
The smaller churches
Besides the well-known buildings, Matera has further churches that rarely appear in guidebooks and are often open only for services. They include San Francesco da Paola on Via Ridola, Materdomini, the convent of Sant’Agostino above the edge of the Sasso Barisano, and the two churches that carry the name Santa Lucia e Sant’Agata – one at the Civita, one at the Fontana. The double name comes from the parish moving: the name went along, the building stayed put.
Practical
People use flash in churches although it is forbidden almost everywhere – with frescoes the damage is measurable. Shoulders and knees should be covered; in the rock churches it is cool even in high summer.
Read on
- Rock churches in and around Matera – the churches worked out of the stone
- The old town of Matera – the upper town where most of these churches stand
- Palaces of the upper town – the secular side of the same era
