Cammino Materano: Matera!

Taking notes for this post

Matera! 

What can I possibly write about such an extraordinary city? 

That it is one of the oldest continually inhabited settlements in the world? 

That it is a city where you can live in a cave? 

That it is a city where the streets you walk on are the roof of someone else's house? 

Or that it is the only city centre in the world to have been completely evacuated and abandoned... and then resettled?

The Sassi di Matera have been inhabited since neolithic and possibly even paleolithic times, but the city's written history dates back to the Roman Emperor Metulla, who surrounded the city with walls and towers in 251 B.C. and may even have named it "Matheola" after himself. In the seventh or eighth century of the Christian era Benedictine monks and Basilian monks from the Byzantine Empire opened monasteries on the site. The monks set up their churches in the grottos in the canyon walls, digging deeper into the rock when they wanted to enlarge them, carving pillars and altars into the calcarenite stone, commonly referred to as "tufo". 

The pastoral people of the area settled around the monasteries on the hillside above the ravine in which the Gravina River runs, forming a good-sized city by the Middle Ages.

By the year 1500 the city was flourishing, growing so rapidly that the caves excavated into the rock were no longer enough to house the booming population. The blocks of stone removed to dig deeper into the rock were used to build upwards and outwards, adding new rooms onto the cave dwellings and building entire palaces that blend in perfectly with the pale beige stone of the rocky landscape. Matera was a flourishing centre of trade and craftsmanship, as well as an agricultural hub. 

After the year 1500 the decline of a lifestyle and economy centring around livestock-raising out in the country, as well as new developments in agriculture permitting a steep rise in population, led to more and more numerous, and larger, families congregating in the old town centre. Every available space, from cisterns to storehouses and abandoned chapels, was converted into a family home. The booming population made the city into a sort of human anthill, housing about 18,000 souls! 

To ensure a constant supply of drinking water for this vast city, in the sixteenth century the municipal authorities expropriated a number of adjacent cellars and cisterns located on the site of underground springs and joined them all together to form a single public reservoir for the city. In 1882 this was expanded further, producing the Palombaro Lungo, in service until the construction of the Acquedotto Pugliese made it unnecessary in 1920. Rediscovered in 1991, this giant underground cistern has now been drained and is open to visitors. 

In 1809 Napoleon shut down the monasteries, here as elsewhere, and many of the city's 156 rock churches, built by hollowing out the rock of the cliffs to form the conventional shape of a church above ground, complete with frescoed walls, arches and columns, were leased out after the monastic orders had been stripped of their wealth and power. Whole families moved into the abandoned chapels, converting niches and altars into mangers for their animals and side chapels into bedrooms and kitchens. 

Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario 

In these and other cave dwellings, the only source of light and ventilation was the door, which had to be left open all day long. People spent most of their time outdoors, in the squares and courtyards among the rock dwellings, or out in the fields tending to their sheep, but even so, the caves were extremely unhealthy as human habitations. Cold and damp, with no ventilation other than the open door, in a space shared with chickens, perhaps a mule, a goat or even a pig, these homes led to a very short life expectancy and an infant mortality rate of almost 50% in the Matera of the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Despite - or perhaps because of - these inhuman conditions, the people of Matera were the first in southern Italy to rebel against the Nazi occupation in 1943. 

In 1945, anti-fascist writer, painter and doctor Carlo Levi published his memoirs of his time in internal exile in the nearby village of Aliano, including a chapter quoting the impressions of his sister, also a doctor, describing what she had seen in Matera, when she went to apply for a permit to visit him. 

“Dentro quei buchi neri dalle pareti di terra vedevo i letti, le misere suppellettili, i cenci stesi. Sul pavimento erano sdraiati i cani, le pecore, le capre, i maiali. Ogni famiglia ha in genere una sola di quelle grotte per abitazione e ci dormono tutti insieme, uomini, donne, bambini, bestie. Di bambini ce n’era un’infinità, nudi o coperti di stracci. Ho visto dei bambini seduti sull’uscio delle case, nella sporcizia, al sole che scottava, con gli occhi semichiusi e le palpebre rosse e gonfie. Era il tracoma. Sapevo che ce n’era quaggiù: ma vederlo così nel sudiciume e nella miseria è un’altra cosa. E le mosche si posavano sugli occhi e quelli pareva che non le sentissero coi visini grinzosi come dei vecchi e scheletrici per la fame: i capelli pieni di pidocchi e di croste. Le donne magre con dei lattanti denutriti e sporchi attaccati a dei seni vizzi, sembrava di essere in mezzo ad una città colpita dalla peste.”

- Carlo Levi, Cristo si è fermato ad Eboli

"The alleys in the narrow space between the houses and the hillside did double service: they were a roadway for those who came out of their houses from above and a roof for those who lived beneath. The houses were open on account of the heat, and as I went by I could see into the caves, whose only light came in through the front doors. Some of them had no entrance but a trapdoor and ladder. In these dark holes with walls cut out of the earth I saw a few pieces of miserable furniture, beds, and some ragged clothes hanging up to dry. On the floor lays dogs, sheep, goats, and pigs. Most families have just one cave to live in and there they sleep all together; men, women, children, and animals. This is how twenty thousand people live. 

"Of children I saw an infinite number. They appeared from everywhere, in the dust and heat, amid the flies, stark naked or clothed in rags; I have never in all my life seen such a picture of poverty."

- Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli

The first edition 

The publication of Levi's book caused a public outcry, and various politicians and intellectuals began to investigate the matter. In 1948 Communist party leader and deputy prime minister Palmiro Togliatti went to Matera to see for himself, and called the city "the shame of the nation". 

What happened next is concisely described by Dolly Shares in her essay published on the Ploughshares blog: "The significance of Christ Stopped at Eboli is not just in its writing but also in its status as a historical artifact, around which great political changes were initiated. Following its publication in 1945, it garnered the attention of prime minister Alcide De Gasperi, who vowed to clear up 'the shame of Italy'. What he ended up offering was an ill-conceived government programme to relocate Matera’s people and renovate the grottos. Beginning in 1954, the city’s population of roughly 16,000 was slowly moved into a housing project at the outskirts of town. Once settled, however, it did not take long for the flaws in the plan to reveal themselves. To begin with, the transition disrupted the communities of the Sassi, leaving people isolated in an alien environment. These social issues were compounded by economic struggles, as the city’s residents were told to make a living off agriculture but were provided with limited, and somewhat unworkable, plots. By the 1960s, all the locals had moved on to seek employment opportunities elsewhere, leaving the city an empty shell."

The city centre was left an empty shell, and so, perhaps, were its people, forcibly evicted from their homes (they could stay on the condition that they upgrade them to modern standards of sanitation, but none of them could afford to pay for such renovations) and moved into soulless public housing estates in the suburbs. Some of them became factory workers, and builders employed in the construction of those very suburbs, as well as the "ideal" agricultural villages constructed in the surrounding countryside, designed by Italy's finest architects in the Rationalist style in vogue at the time. But the vast majority of the people ended up emigrating to seek work elsewhere. 

Better than a cave?

Statue of Prime Minister De Gasperi, beside the housing estates he had built

It took twelve years to complete the eviction of the residents of the entire city centre; for the next twenty years the Sassi of Matera stood empty, a crumbling ghost town. 

But crumbling ghost towns have their uses! The abandoned city made a perfect film set, and between 1950 and 2021, 80 movies were filmed in Matera. Among the best-known of these are Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to Saint Matthew and Mel Gibson's The Passion of  Christ, in both of which Matera stands in for ancient Jerusalem. 

Pier Paolo Pasolini in Matera with Jesus Christ, aka Spanish actor Enrique Irazoqui

The movies attracted public attention to Matera once again, and so did Carlo Levi, who attempted to make up for the unintended damage caused by his well-meaning denunciation of the horrendous living conditions in the city by making a public appeal for people to move back into the Sassi in 1967. However it was not until 1986 that this became possible: the city of Matera offered a 99-year lease on the historic properties in the ancient city centre to anyone who would promise to restore them - to strict criteria - at their own expense. A small community of artists and intellectuals began to colonise the abandoned old town centre, and it became hip to live in a cave. Or even spend a night in one, or eat a meal: decaying properties were renovated for use as hotels, restaurants and B&Bs, as well as chic little arts and crafts galleries. 

Four thousand people now live permanently in the Sassi di Matera, in addition to the holidaymakers who stay in vacation rentals in the area. 

Old homes restored as accommodations in the Sassi 

The cellars of the restaurant Il Terrazzino, which offers an excellent pilgrim menu

Agriristories boutique and restaurant, serving organic local food & wine, also offers a pilgrim menu

One last toast to the Cammino Materano! 

The city of Matera got another major boost when it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993, and again in 2014 when it was named European Cultural Capital for the year 2019.

Historic Matera now offers a vast range of tourist accommodations for all tastes and budgets, from luxury "cave hotels" with spas dug into the rock to a hostel right on the edge of the old part of the city. The Ostello dei Sassi is currently closed for renovations, but we found a holiday apartment right next door to it, one of three holiday flats ideally located where the Sassi (the part of the city you want to visit) meet the newer part of town built over the past few centuries on the flat land at the top (where most of the conveniences such as restaurants, bars and shops are located). 

Our flat in Via Casalnuovo 

I don't normally publish pictures of myself in bed, but this one is just too good to miss! 

The flats, and the hostel, are also ideally located for walkers on the Cammino Materano, because they are right next to the office where you can pick up your Testimonium: certificate of completion of the Cammino Materano! 

Cammino Materano Via Peuceta Day 8: Masseria La Fiorita - Matera

Marialaura of Masseria La Fiorita served up the best breakfast we've had on the Cammino Materano: bread with homemade jam and honey, cake, and milk from the farm's own cows, with coffee made in the biggest moka pot I've ever seen!

Marialaura's partner Pasquale took a group photo of us with our hostess outside the hostel, then loaded us all into his van and drove us back to the point where we had left the main trail of the Cammino Materano to take the variant leading to Masseria La Fiorita. At the junction of the two routes, the shorter, more direct 17 km route to Matera and the longer, 30 km route, Mariella, Francesca and I parted ways with Daniela, who had decided to take the longer, more scenic route. 

The signpost where the two routes split

The 17 km route from the Sanctuary of Picciano to Matera

Francesca, Mariella and I took the shorter route. It's a total of 17 km from the Sanctuary of Picciano to Matera, including the 3.5 km downhill stretch from the Sanctuary that we had already walked the previous day, so we had only 13.5 km remaining to walk to the city centre. We calculated that this would leave us plenty of time and energy to explore the city of Matera in the afternoon. 

The first part of the walk was very pleasant, on a dirt track through the fields with only the occasional tractor for company. 

We passed close by the ravine of the Torrente Gravina, the stream that runs through Gravina and all the way to Matera, creating the canyon that makes the two towns so spectacular. There seemed to have been a brush fire in the bottom of the ravine recently, and many of the trees had been scorched, with blackened trunks and orange leaves.

After this spectacular stretch we came to the industrial zone that makes this shorter variant less popular with walkers. On a Sunday morning it was silent and deserted.

We were walking on concrete, but with no traffic at all. After only a few kilometres we left the industries behind and returned to a more bucolic landscape of olive groves and small houses with vegetable plots before beginning the long climb to Matera.

At the top of the hill is the new town, constructed when the old homes dug into the rock in the ancient town centre were expropriated by the Italian government after the Second World War, when the world became aware of the unhealthy conditions in which the people were living at the time. The inhabitants of the old town centre were forcibly evicted and moved into newly built blocks of flats on the outskirts of the town, reminiscent of British council flats, where they could benefit from modern conveniences such as indoor plumbing and heating. 

Better than a cave

For several decades thereafter, Matera had the biggest abandoned historic centre in Europe. It was not until the 1980s that people began renovating the buildings in the city centre and moving back in; there are now about 4000 people living in the centre of the old town, as well as plenty of vacation rentals and luxury hotels. Modern air conditioning, heating and dehumidification systems have made the cave dwellings more comfortable, and you can now pay up to a thousand euros a night for the privilege of sleeping in a grotto that was considered unsuitable for human habitation only fifty years ago!

I will write more about this unique city in tomorrow's entry; for now, suffice it to say that we arrived safe and sound, found our own cave dwelling for the next two days, and celebrated the completion of our Cammino Materano with a nice cold beer! 

Junction for Masseria La Fiorita - Matera by the shorter route 13.5 km

The 30 km route from the Sanctuary of Picciano to Matera

Daniela took the longer route into Matera; here is my translation of her description of her day!

The longer of the two versions of the final stage in the Cammino Materano takes you in a big semi-circle around the city of Matera, so that you can view it in the distance from different angles. 

The first part is entirely flat, crossing a large agricultural area with very few houses. For more than an hour it follows an abandoned old road, now used only by the inhabitants of those few houses and the people who work in the fields. The old road runs more or less parallel to the new road crossing the big white bridge, a modern construction that stands out in the landscape even from a distance.

Many of the farmhouses have been abandoned, but the land appeared to be well-cared-for, ploughed ready for seeding new crops. Even on a Sunday, there were tractors at work ploughing the soil, tracing the lines in the earth that give the landscape its characteristic appearance. 

The path is an easy one, even when it begins to climb, and the landscape is highly various, alternating fields with olive groves. In some places it runs parallel to the ravine of the Bradano River, so that you can step off the path by only a few metres to look deep down into these steep canyons, similar to the one in whose walls the city of Matera is carved.

After proceeding up and down some rather steep hills, the trail brought me to the Oasis of San Giuliano, a WWF nature reserve created when the Bradano River was dammed to irrigate the farmland, creating an artificial lake which is an ideal habitat for water fowl such as herons and cranes. 

The Oasis is about one third of the way to Matera. It looks rather out of place among the fields, with all its pine and eucalyptus trees. At one time, this area was under the sea: the Ionian and Adriatic Seas were one, and only the highest ground was above water. Walking on the shores of the lake, it is still possible to find fossilised seashells, and low water levels recently revealed the remains of a whale dating back to more than a million years ago: the world’s biggest fossilised whale from the Pleistocene era.

The lake has a beach of compact sand, particularly broad this year as the water level has fallen due to drought. It’s the perfect place to take a break in the shade, and is a popular destination for locals enjoying a day out in a natural setting.

Upon leaving the Oasis the path goes back into the sunshine; luckily it is on a dirt road, rather than the pavement, because by this time of day it was getting very warm, and I seemed to be getting farther away from the city rather than closer! After four hours of walking I came to the turn-off for the Criptadel Peccato Originale, referred to as the "Sistine Chapel in a cave" because of its early medieval frescoes. But walking to the crypt would have added an extra 4 kilometres, and it is only open to visitors who have booked a guided tour, so unfortunately I had to continue on my way. 

Occasionally I would come around a bend and feel that I was coming closer to Matera, but then another bend in the road would take me farther away again. One of these took me down to the Gravina to ford the stream. Luckily Marialaura of Masseria La Fiorita had advised us to take our shoes off, even though the water level is low; soaking your feet in cold water after such a long walk is a wonderful feeling!

 

The river is another great place for a rest in the shade, before continuing on along the path through fields, in full sunshine.

The landscape offered nothing to attract the eye other than the rolling hills. Then Matera appeared at the end of the road, seen from a completely new angle! High up on the top of the hill were white buildings in modern style and a large construction with a red volume in the middle, the city hospital. The final long climb up to the city is along the hospital wall, where I felt grateful to be on the outside and not on the inside… Then the path finally comes out right at the entrance to the city of Matera, with a welcome sign visible to walkers and motorists  alike. 

 

Another 600 or 700 metres brought me right into the city centre, on Via Casalnuovo, with a view over the Sassi, and specifically the oldest part of the city, referred to as Sasso Caveoso: a spectacle that is even more welcome after walking such a long way!

Just one more hill remained to be climbed, up the stairs to the Cathedral of the Madonna della Bruna, the highest point in the city, where the two alternative routes for the final stage in the Cammino Materano come together! 

Santuario di Picciano - Matera by the scenic route 30 km