SATURDAY, JUNE 15
Forget getting up at the crack of dawn to catch a city bus to the bus station, or nearly missing the Bari to Matera bus, forget that it was a blistering 34C by 10:30 when we arrived in Matera because it was all worthwhile. We were in mysterious Matera.
WHY WE LIKE BUSES
On the bus ride there, I turned to Chloe and said I love that we get these bus rides, that we do all this “between stuff” of travelling…buses, trains, ferries, etc. Along the way, we see so much of what surrounds the cities we visit. On this hour ride, the flat, dry, sparsely-populated landscape gave way to rolling grassy hills. Every now and then, a distant rise was topped by a deserted, stone mansion. Small, piled-stone, tipi-shaped buildings dotted open fields. So many olive trees grew they seemed to grow wild. Chloe said sardonically, between nodding off to sleep, “We’re in the jungle.”
ARRIVING IN MATERA
It smelled like the valley had been sprayed with the fragrance of sweet peas, when we stepped off the bus into the dry, hot air in Matera.
We ate a delicious lunch at Trattoria Lucan, a neighborhood restaurant, near our Airbnb in the “new” town. Undeterred by the sweltering midday heat (reaching 37C), we walked to the Sassi from there. Not much was open but we went to the Casa Grotto Antica Matera, a small cave home set up with props and photographs to represent what life was like inside. Later, a long, slow, hot climb up stairs and passageways led to the Duomo, where we saw frescos from the 1100s at the entrance and by the front alter.
A COMPLEX HISTORY
Until the end of 2019, Matera was the Cultural Capital City of Europe, a designation given to chosen cities for a five-year period. In some ways, it seems a peculiar choice since Matera is known throughout Italy for its history of abject poverty. Instead of participating in the development of great arts, like Genoa, “culture” in this humble city is it’s history, which dates back to prehistoric times, its architecture, and the city’s physical structure.
The Sassi (which means stone in Italian), the center of Matera, is a surviving Medieval town carved into and clinging to limestone cliffs, a living museum. Buildings and caves in the Sassi sit on top of each other, stairs wind every which way, houses hug and are cut into the limestone hills. The entirety of the Sassi is contained in a deep, wide ravine, the Duomo crowning its highest point and dominating the hilltop plateau.
LIFE IN THE SASSI
Locals are quick to say that Matera was the “shame of Italy,” a feeling the five-year designation has not yet erased from memory. Until the 1950s when the city received Marshall Plan money, people lived in dire poverty in homes dug into the rock walls. No sewers, running water, or electricity were found in the Sassi. Often large, extended families, sometimes 12 in total, occupied one open, cave space, living with their donkey, a pig and some hens. Caves had no ventilation, usually no front window, cooking was done inside on a stone stove with small fires. The family’s “bathroom” was a pot in a tiny section of the home, and the animals used the hay in a small area where they were tied up. Imagine the smell.
Starvation and diseases were common. The infant mortality rate was high. The one meal a day consisted mostly of bread. Most people had two pairs of clothing..what they wore each day, and what they wore to church on Sunday.
Many families lived like this until the early 1950s, some into the early 1960s. In the late 1950s, 20,000 people were relocated to apartments in the modern part of Matera. The Sassi’s population hovered around 20,000 for thousands of years, the poorest living in caves on the cliffs, the rich living higher up in homes built off stone walls.
RELOCATION
The relocation scattered families that lived side by side for many generations; connections were severed by distance. But the people didn’t mourn the loss of community, rather they found relief in escape from their despicable living conditions. When city leaders asked the people who had been relocated what should be done with the abandoned Sassi, most former residents said “Destroy it.”
But the Sassi was not destroyed. It remained mostly deserted until the 1990s when it was given a UNESCO historic city designation. People began creating boutique hotels, restaurants, and shops. Tourist started visiting. But tourism really took off in 2014, with the designation of Cultural Capital City of Europe.
STRANGENESS OF IT ALL
Now, the boutique-ified, commercialized Sassi and 25% of the housing in Matera used for Airbnbs provides this formerly impoverished city with a decent income. At first it seemed incongruous that people travel and pay large amounts to stay in the Sassi’s “exotic” cave hotels where others lived such difficult lives.
Matera is undeniably fascinating, though, from an architectural and design perspective. Not just the Sassi but the Neoclassical apartments outside it, in such dramatic contrast to the ancient buildings.
SOME WORTHWHILE READING
To learn more about Matera, I suggest reading: “Materan Contradictions: Architecture, Preservation and Politics” by Anne Parmly Toxey; and of course, Christ Stopped at Eboli. Copies of Carlo Levi’s book are sold throughout Matera. It’s a classic, beautifully-nuanced autobiography that describes the people and landscape of Matera and the surrounding towns in exquisite detail.
