From Shame to Splendor: The Story of Matera's 9,000-Year Reinvention
The first thing you should know about Matera is that people have lived in these caves for 9,000 years. The second thing you should know is that in 1952, the Italian government evacuated 15,000 of them because the living conditions were considered a national disgrace.
The third thing — the remarkable thing — is what happened after.
The Ancient City
sits on the edge of a limestone gorge in Basilicata, Italy's poorest and most overlooked region. The gorge — the Gravina — cuts through soft calcareous rock that early humans discovered could be carved with simple tools. They carved homes. Then churches. Then cisterns, channels, and storage rooms. Over millennia, the settlement grew vertically, each generation building on the caves of the last, creating the Sassi — two districts of cave dwellings (Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso) that cascade down the canyon wall in a dense, interconnected labyrinth.
By the medieval period, Matera was a functioning city with over 150 rock-hewn churches, some containing Byzantine frescoes dating from the 8th to 13th centuries. The rupestrian churches of Santa Maria de Idris (3 EUR) and San Pietro Barisano (3 EUR) survive with remarkable preservation. The Crypt of Original Sin — a cave 15 minutes outside town — contains 9th-century frescoes that art historians call the "Sistine Chapel of cave art" (10 EUR, reservation required).
The cave system was sophisticated. An ingenious water management network captured rainfall, channeled it through carved tunnels, and stored it in underground cisterns. The same principles that supplied water in 3000 BC were still functioning in the 20th century.
The Shame
By the 1940s, the sophistication had collapsed. Matera's cave dwellings housed 15,000 people in conditions that shocked even wartime Italy. Entire families — sometimes ten or more people — lived with their animals in single rooms. Malaria was endemic. Infant mortality was devastating. Sunlight reached some dwellings for only a few hours a day.
In 1945, Carlo Levi published Cristo si e fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at Eboli), an account of his political exile in Basilicata that exposed the poverty of the Mezzogiorno. His descriptions of Matera's cave life — the promiscuity of humans and animals, the dark grottoes, the peasant fatalism — scandalized Italy.
The Prime Minister, Alcide De Gasperi, visited Matera in 1950. What he saw prompted legislation. By 1952, the government began forcibly relocating the cave-dwelling population to newly built housing in the modern town above. The Sassi were emptied. Abandoned. Left to decay.
For forty years, the caves sat silent — a ghost city of empty rooms and collapsing roofs, visible from the modern town but deliberately forgotten.
The Renaissance
The turning point came in 1993, when UNESCO inscribed the Sassi di Matera and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches as a World Heritage Site. The designation recognized what the evacuation had obscured: that the Sassi represented one of the most extraordinary examples of continuous human adaptation to a natural environment in the world.
Restoration began slowly. A few visionary hoteliers and restaurateurs saw potential in the abandoned caves. Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita — now Matera's most prestigious hotel (~350 EUR/night) — pioneered the concept of "albergo diffuso" (distributed hotel), converting a cluster of medieval grottoes into atmospheric rooms with modern plumbing but original stone walls.
Other cave hotels followed. Restaurants opened in converted cisterns. Artisan workshops returned to the old quarter. And in 2019, Matera was named European Capital of Culture — a distinction shared with Plovdiv (2019) — a designation that would have seemed impossible, even offensive, to the families evacuated in the 1950s.
Visiting the Layers Today
Modern Matera is a study in contrasts. The Sassi are beautiful now — restored, lit at night, filled with boutique hotels (cave rooms from 50-200 EUR), restaurants, and galleries. The stone lanes are swept clean. The doorways that once led to overcrowded poverty now open into stylish accommodation with rainfall showers.
But the history is preserved:
Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario (5 EUR, Sasso Caveoso): A single cave room furnished exactly as it was when families lived there. One space for humans. One corner for the mule. A cistern in the floor. The guided explanation (available in English) makes the poverty vivid without exploiting it.
The Belvedere di Murgia Timone (free): The panoramic viewpoint across the gorge where you can see the full scale of the Sassi. This is the viewpoint used in No Time to Die and The Passion of the Christ. At sunset, the cave city glows golden.
MUSMA (7 EUR): Modern sculpture in ancient cave rooms. The interplay between contemporary art and 9,000-year-old geology is unlike anything in any purpose-built museum.
Pane di Matera IGP: The city's bread — baked in wood-fired ovens in massive loaves from local durum wheat — has Protected Geographical Indication status. Visit Panificio Perrone or Forno Antico Comunale to watch traditional baking. A loaf (2-3 EUR) paired with local olive oil is the quintessential Matera meal.
The Tension
There's a tension in modern Matera that honest travel writing should acknowledge. The same caves where families suffered are now charging 200 EUR per night. The "shame of Italy" is now Italy's trendiest weekend destination. Instagram influencers pose on the same stone lanes where children died of malaria.
Some former residents and their descendants feel the renaissance has happened without them. The restoration created employment, but also drove up property values in a historically poor region. The cultural narrative has shifted from "look how these people suffered" to "look how beautiful the suffering produced," which is a more comfortable story for tourists but a more complicated one for locals.
Visiting Casa Grotta — spending time with the reality of cave life before it was aestheticized — is essential. Understanding the shame-to-pride arc requires engaging with both chapters, not just the photogenic conclusion.
The Practicalities
Getting there: Fly to Bari (BRI), then FAL train (1.5h, 5 EUR) or Pugliairbus shuttle (70 min, 5 EUR). No main-line train station.
Where to stay: Cave hotels from 50 EUR (basic B&B) to 350 EUR (Sextantio). The experience of sleeping in carved rock with modern amenities is worth the premium over a standard hotel.
Eating: Southern Italian prices. Orecchiette with cime di rapa: 10-12 EUR. Pizza: 6-10 EUR. Pane di Matera: 2-3 EUR per loaf. Aglianico wine: 3-5 EUR per glass. Best value at Trattoria Lucana and Oi Mari.
Best time: April-June and September-October. July-August exceeds 38°C and the stone amplifies the heat.
Walking: Wear hiking boots or sturdy shoes with grip. The Sassi are steep, stepped, and slippery when wet. This is not optional advice.
The Arc
Matera's story is not comfortable. It's a story of poverty, political neglect, forced displacement, abandonment, and eventual redemption through international recognition. The beauty that tourists enjoy today was built on real suffering that occurred within living memory.
But it's also a story of resilience. Of a place that has housed humans for 9,000 years adapting — again — to a new form of existence. The caves that were a prison became a attraction became a cultural statement. The bread is still baked in wood-fired ovens. The rupestrian churches still hold their frescoes. And the gorge still catches the light at sunset exactly as it has for millennia.
Matera endures. It always has. For a different Italian cave experience, explore Cappadocia in Turkey.
