It is a beautiful drive on quiet roads across varied countryside from the Valle D’Itria, leaving Puglia through olive groves and trulli, fields with hay bales, orchards of fruit trees and forests, to the wide open fields of Basilicata. Your first view of the city of Matera is from a distance, and coming from the south, you can only see the new town; the famous ancient sassi and the ravine the town is built along are hidden. Parking in the new town, the pleasant enough sixties and seventies architecture leads to the stunning baroque piazzas of Vittorio Veneto and San Francesco with the obligatory cafes, grand palazzo buildings and wide avenues leading out from them.

It is then you see the first vista of the sassi below; the slum like dwellings piled on top of one another and built into the caves of the valley. Nothing really prepares you for the sight, it is a man-made wonder and does not seem real; it is hard to believe that it was once a thriving and busy settlement. Matera is one of the longest continuously inhabited settlements on earth; originally used as housing for farmers and land workers who took advantage of the easily defensible hilltop location with good access to expansive land and well-flowing rivers. The population steadily increased, welcoming pilgrims and migrants during the 12-1300s when the cathedral was built, crowning the now prosperous city. In the middle ages, skilled artisans and professional people flocked to Matera and the city came to hold much power and wealth with a hierarchy which also looked after the poorer members of the community. At this time, the sassi were used for storage, animals, olive presses etc, not as dwellings, as many of the medieval and baroque buildings we can still see today were built for people to live in, often attached to the existing ancient architecture.

It is therefore heart-breaking to think that around 200 years ago, Matera’s star lost its shine, as well as its power, and the middle classes went away. The nobility had little interest in helping the poor and as farming decreased and the people were not skilled to work as anything else, they had no choice but to retreat to the sassi.

*Inside an individual dwelling; they are open to just wander in to.*

In 1945, Carlo Levi’s book ‘Christ Stopped at Eboli’ made Matera famous once more, but for all the wrong reasons. The 16,000 people living there were enduring unacceptable poverty, with child mortality at 50%, living amongst their animals in darkness, filth and disease. They had been forgotten and what their lives and living conditions had become were described at the time as the shame of Italy. The typewriter entrepreneur Adriano Olivetti became involved, with many others, in building new housing developments close by to Matera, with the intention of abandoning the uninhabitable sassi forever. However, the relocated tenants struggled to adjust to their new surroundings, which did not turn out to be the solution the government had hoped for.

In the 1980’s, intrepid locals started renovating and then moving back to the sassi, seeing their architectural and cultural importance to the region and to the world, which was recognised by Matera being made a UNESCO world heritage site in 1993. Since then, Matera has gone from strength to strength with many hotels, museums and galleries opening to attract tourists and with the honour of European City of Culture coming in 2019, Matera is no longer forgotten.

The poverty and harsh conditions experienced by the people of Matera was not isolated to that city, most of the South of Italy, including Puglia, endured similar hardships through history. Most of the rural land of southern Italy in the 19th century was owned by either the church or wealthy landlords from the north. The landowners benefitted from the farming of their land, not the local people who mainly worked as sharecroppers; depending on the side and quality of their harvests to make meagre ends meet. Many people in southern Italy lived in poverty until recent times, under the often punitive rule of the rich landowners, surviving on a diet of grains and vegetables and little meat. As I mentioned in my last post, this is the history of the ‘cucina povera’ that Puglia has now become famous for.

Matera is a great day trip from northern Puglia (or even as a weekend break); it is easy to get to, there are some great places to stay, some fabulous, innovative restaurants and I really haven’t been to another place like it – it is a truly unique experience which shouldn’t be missed. It is a city you can certainly visit in a day and it is easy to walk around; there is a tourist information office on Piazza Vittorio Veneto where you can pick up a map and ask questions. Many of the sassi are open for you to explore and there are several museums and galleries. We very much enjoyed the short experience at Casa Noha (https://www.fondoambiente.it/casa-noha-eng/) an interactive storytelling of the history of Matera – definitely worth a stop, perhaps at the beginning of your day, to get a clear perspective before delving into the city itself.