Matera

Matera is an Italian municipality and city, capital of the homonymous province, and first city of the Basilicata region, in the south of the country (sometimes referred to as Lucania). It is inhabited by about 60,383 inhabitants.

The city sits at an oblique angle to a canyon, which has been eroded over the years by a small stream, the Gravina. It has a very particular old town, in which the houses were dug into the limestone rock. "The Sassi and the set of cave churches of Matera" were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993. Apart from an economy that has traditionally been based on agriculture, at the end of the 1990s, the main economic resource of Matera, and of the cities that surround it, is the production of upholstery.

The city was, together with the Bulgarian Plovdiv, the European Capital of Culture in 2019.

History

The region of what is now Matera has been inhabited since Paleolithic times. The city is said to have been founded by the Romans in the III century BC. C., with the name of Metheola by the name of the consul Fifth Cecilio Metelo.

In the year 664 Matera was conquered by the Lombards and became part of the Duchy of Benevento. In the VII and VIII centuries The nearby grottoes were settled by monastic institutions, both by the Benedictines and the Greek Orthodox.

The IX and X were characterized by the struggle between the Saracens, the Byzantines and the German emperors, including Louis II the Younger, who destroyed the city. After the Norman establishment in Apulia, Matera was ruled by Guillermo Brazo de Hierro from 1043.

After a brief communal period and a series of epidemics and earthquakes, the city in the 15th century became Aragonese possession, and was handed over as a fief to the barons of the Tramontano family. In 1514, however, the population rebelled against the oppression and killed Count Giovanni Carlo Tramontano. In the 17th century, Matera was handed over to the Orsini and later became part of the Terre d'Otranto di Puglia. Later it was the capital of Basilicata, a position it held until 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte made Potenza the capital.

In 1927 it became the capital of the province of Matera. On September 2, 1943, the Materanos rose up against the German occupation, being the first Italian city to fight against the Wehrmacht.

From the 1950s, many architects and urban planners focused their interest in Matera for its particular way of life. Thus, Serra Venerdì was born, the first regulatory plan of the city by Luigi Piccinato, the La Martella rural settlement designed by the architect Ludovico Quaroni, the Spine Bianche district, a work of great architectural relevance of Neorealism, designed by Carlo Aymonino; etc

In 2019 it was, along with the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, the European Capital of Culture.

Places of interest

The Sassi

Matera has gained international fame for its ancient city, the “Sassi di Matera” (meaning “stones of Matera”). The sassi originate from prehistoric (troglodyte) settlements, and are believed to be some of the earliest human settlements in Italy.

The sassi are houses carved into the tuff rock itself, which is characteristic of Basilicata and Apulia. Many of these "houses" are really just caves, and the streets in some places in the sassi are often located on the roofs of other houses. The ancient city grew up on the side of a ravine created by a river that is now a small stream. The ravine is known locally as “la Gravina”.

In the 1950s, the Italian government forcibly evicted most of the population of the sassi and moved them to developing areas of the modern city. However, people continued to live in the sassi, and according to Fodor's English guide:

Matera is the only place in the world where people can boast of still living in the same houses as their ancestors of 9,000 years ago.

Until the late 1980s, this area was considered poor, as these houses were, and for the most part still are, uninhabitable. The current local administration, however, has become more oriented towards tourism, and has promoted the regeneration of the sassi with the help of the European Union, the government, Unesco and Hollywood. Today there are many thriving businesses, pubs and hotels.

One of the benefits of the old city is that there is a great resemblance in the external appearance of the sassi and that of the ancient places in and around Jerusalem. This has attracted movie directors and movie studios.

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  Stairs of the historic centre of Matera

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  House Grotta

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  Via Ridola

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  Via Bruno Buozzi

Monasteries and churches

Like any other city in Italy, Matera has a number of churches. Yet nowhere else in Italy, and possibly even in the world, can you see such a diverse set of buildings related to the Christian faith.

The Cathedral of Matera

• The Cathedral of Matera (“Duomo”, 1268-1270) is an important monument, and is dedicated to Santa Maria della Bruna since 1389. erected in the Romanesque apulian architectural style, the church has a high bell tower of 52 meters, and next to the main door there is a statue of Maria della Bruna, supported by the saints Peter and Paul. It was built on a plum at the top of the civita that divides the two sassi. The main feature of the facade is the rosette, divided by sixteen columns. The interior has a Latin cross plant, with a nave and two corridors. The decoration is mainly of baroque restoration of the centuryXVIIIbut a fresh century has recently been discoveredXIV in Byzantine style representing the Final Judgment. There's an anonymous picture of the century.XII which represents the Madonna della Bruna, a choir carved in wood located in the apse and the belén, made by the sculptor Altobello Persio in 1534.

There are many other churches and monasteries dating back to various moments in Christian history:

• San Giovanni Battista: built in 1233, in Romanesque style.
• San Francesco d'Assisi (century)XIII). It rises in commemoration of the visit of the saint to Matera in 1218. He's got baroque additions. Built almost completely in 1670 in baroque style. Inside is the ancient crypt of the Saints Peter and Paul.

In many cases they are cave churches (chiese rupestri), many simple, with a single altar and perhaps a fresco, often located on the opposite side of the ravine; others are a complex network of caverns with large underground chambers, which are thought to have been used for meditation by cave monks and cenobites. In the town and along the ravine there are about 150 small rock-hewn churches. Among the most important in the Sassi neighborhood are:

• Santa Lucia alle Malve, with frescoes of the centuryXIII.
• Convicinio di S. Antonio.
• Santa Barbara.
• Madonna delle Virtù.

This area of cave churches is included in the protected area known as the Parco archeologico storico-naturale delle Chiese rupestri del Materano, also called Parco della Murgia Materana. It is a regional park of Basilicata, created by Regional Law no. 11 of April 3, 1990.

Outside the city, in the open countryside, is the Cripta del Peccato Originale, recently restored with an extraordinary pictorial cycle of frescoes covering the left and back walls.

Lastly, the Convento di Sant'Agostino, an Italian national monument, is located in the Sasso Barisano neighborhood and was erected in 1593, together with the church of the same name, on the ancient rock crypt of San Giuliano dating from the 12th century (sometimes described as the crypt of San Guglielmo to because of a historical error).

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  The Church of Sant'Agostino

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  San Giovanni Battista is an outstanding example of Romanesque architecture in southern Italy

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  Baroque Church of San Pietro Caveoso

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  San Francesco d'Assisi

Cisternas and water collection

Matera was built on the deep Gravina ravine that divides the territory into two zones. Matera was built in such a way that it was hidden, but made it difficult to provide its inhabitants with water. The first settlers invested a large amount of energy in building cisterns and water canal systems.

Other ancient remains

The Tramontano Castle which was begun in the early XVI century by Gian Carlo Tramontano, Count of Matera, is probably the The only structure that stands out on the ground, apart from the sassi. However, the construction remained unfinished after his assassination in the popular revolt of December 29, 1514. It has three large towers, while the original design probably included a total of twelve. During restoration work in the town's main square, workers found what are believed to be the main foundations of another castle tower. However, further excavation uncovered large Roman cisterns, complete with columns and a vaulted ceiling. Complete domestic structures were discovered, where you could see how the people of that time lived.

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  Tramontano Castle

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  Palazzo Lanfranchi

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  Palazzo dell'Annunziata

Demographics

Figure of demographic evolution of Matera between 1861 and 2008

Source ISTAT - Wikipedia graphics

Culture

Auditorium in the Casa cava

Due to the ancient and primitive setting in and around the sassi, it has been used by filmmakers as the setting for ancient Jerusalem. The following films about Biblical times have been filmed in Matera:

• The Gospel According to Saint Matthewby Pier Paolo Pasolini (1964).
• King Davidby Bruce Beresford (1985).
• The Passion of ChristMel Gibson (2004).
• MaryAbel Ferrara (2005).
• The Nativity StoryCatherine Hardwicke (2006).
• The Young MessiahCyrus Nowrasteh (2016).
• Ben-Hurof Timur Bekmambetov (2016)

Other famous movies filmed in the city are:

• The Lupa (The Evil Onein Argentina, by Alberto Lattuada (1953)
• Viva l'Italia!by Roberto Rossellini (1961)
• Made in ItalyNanni Loy (1965)
• C'era a voltaby Francesco Rosi (1967)
• Non si sevizia un Paperinoby Lucio Fulci (1972)
• Allonsanfanof Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (1973)
• The tree of Guernicaby Fernando Arrabal (1975)
• Christ stood in Eboli by Francesco Rosi (1979)
• Tre fratelliby Francesco Rosi (1981)
• The sun also comes out at nightof Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (1990)
• L'uomo delle stelleby Giuseppe Tornatore (1995)
• Prophecyof John Moore (2006)
• Wonder WomanPatty Jenkins (2017)
• No time to die, de Cary Fukunaga (2020)

Notable people

European Capital of Culture

Predecessor: Leeuwarden Valletta

European Capital of Culture along with Plovdiv 2019

Successor: Rijeka Galway