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Matera (, ; Materano: Matàrë ) is a city and the capital of the Province of Matera in the region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy. With a history of continuous occupation dating back to prehistory (the eighth millennium BC), it is renowned for its rock-cut urban core, whose twin cliffside zones are known collectively as the Sassi.
Matera lies on the right bank of the Gravina river, whose canyon forms a geological boundary between the hill country of Basilicata (historic Lucania) to the southwest and the Murgia plateau of Apulia to the northeast. The city began as a complex of cave habitations excavated in the softer limestone on the gorge's western, Lucanian face. It took advantage of two streams that flow into the ravine from a spot near the Castello Tramontano, reducing the cliff's angle of drop and leaving a defensible narrow promontory between the streams. The central high ground, or acropolis, supporting the city's cathedral and administrative buildings, came to be known as Civita, and the settlement districts scaling down and burrowing into the sheer rock faces as the Sassi. Of the two streambeds, called the , the northern hosts Sasso Barisano (facing Bari) and the southern Sasso Caveoso (facing Montescaglioso).
The Sassi consist of approximately twelve levels spanning the height of 380 m, connected by a network of paths, stairways, and courtyards ( vicinati). The medieval city clinging on to the edge of the canyon for its defense is invisible from the western approach. The tripartite urban structure of Civita and the two Sassi, relatively isolated from each other, survived until the sixteenth century, when the centre of public life moved outside the walls to the Piazza Sedile in the open plain (the Piano) to the west, followed by the shift of the elite residences to the Piano from the seventeenth century onward. By the end of the eighteenth century, a physical class boundary separated the Overcrowding Sassi of the peasants from the new spatial order of their social superiors in the Piano, and geographical elevation came to coincide with status more overtly than before, to the point where the two communities no longer interacted socially.
Yet it was only at the turn of the twentieth century that the Sassi were declared unfit for modern habitation, and the government relocation of all their inhabitants to new housing in the Piano followed between 1952 and the 1970s. A new law in 1986 opened the path to restoration and reoccupation of the Sassi, this time – as noted by the architectural historian Anne Toxey – gentrification. The recognition of the Sassi, labelled la città sotterranea ("the underground city"), together with the Rupestrian art churches across the Gravina as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in December 1993 has assisted in attracting tourism and accelerated the reclaiming of the site. In 2019, Matera was declared a European Capital of Culture.
Although scholars continue to debate the date the dwellings were first occupied in Matera, and the continuity of their subsequent occupation, the area of what is now Matera is believed to have been settled since the Palaeolithic (tenth millennium BC). This makes it potentially one of the oldest continually inhabited settlements in the world.Leonardo A. Chisena, Matera dalla civita al piano: stratificazione, classi sociali e costume politico, Congedo, 1984, p.7 Alternatively, it has been suggested by Anne Toxey that the area has been "occupied continuously for at least three millennia". (2025). 9788849290134, Gangemi Editore spa. ISBN 9788849290134
Built on an entrenched prehistoric village, the town is likely to have Greek origins. In the times of Magna Graecia, Matera shared a close relationship with the Greek cities on the southern coast, becoming a trade and transit route in Roman times.Then the town of Matera was established by the Ancient Rome Lucius Caecilius Metellus in 251 BC who called it Matheola. In AD 664, Matera was conquered by the Lombards and became part of the Duchy of Benevento. During the seventh and eighth centuries, the nearby grottos were colonised by both Benedictine and Basilian monks monastic institutions. After the Arab conquest of Bari in 840, Matera came under Islamic rule. Emancipated from the old Lombard jurisdiction of the gastald of Acerenza in the Principality of Salerno, the town gained regional prominence.
In the spring of 867, it was burnt by the imperial troops of Louis II as the first key target in the emirate's conquest; the Chronicle of St. Benedict of Monte Cassino calls it a particularly well-defended site. The Franks soon fell out with the Lombards and the Byzantines, exploited the local need for protection from Arab raiding and internal Lombard divisions, to retake Apulia, which became the theme of Longobardia in 891/2. Already by 887, Matera's local Lombard elite bore Byzantine titles, the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno had to conduct business before the Byzantine judge and town notables of Matera, and the Greeks of Matera made up the Byzantine garrison of Naples. The precarious Byzantine rule had to contend with the ambitions of Lombard towns and nobles against the background of frequent incursions from the neighbouring duchy of Capua-Benevento and from Arab Sicily. In 940 Matera was besieged, possibly with local assistance, by the Lombards.
On 25 January 982 the army of Otto II camped before the walls of Matera on its way from Salerno to Taranto, ostensibly marching against the Arabs. In 994 Matera was temporarily captured by the Arabs after a four-month siege. The town continued to play a part in Byzantine governance: in June 1019 the chartoularios Stephanos of Matera assisted in the re-foundation of Troia. But civic unrest was also endemic and in 1040 the Byzantine judge Romanos was murdered at Matera by the local auxiliary troops during a wave of assaults on Byzantine officials that swept across the region. After the prominent Apulian rebels enlisted the support of the Italo-Normans and defeated the new katepano of Italy at Cannae in 1041, Matera fell within the scope of Norman incursions and struck a deal with the invaders. In retaliation for this, the next katepano George Maniakes, dispatched to Italy with special powers in April 1042, carried out mass executions in Matera in June, only to launch a rebellion of his own in September.
After his departure Matera elected William Iron Arm as its count (1042), but like other towns it remained in Byzantine hands despite the Norman advances – in 1054 died Sico, the protospatharios of Matera. The city was seized in April 1064 as an independent acquisition by Robert, Count of Montescaglioso, a seditious nephew of Robert Guiscard, who profited from the involvement of his uncle further south. After count Robert died in July 1080, Matera accepted the rule of his brother Geoffrey of Conversano. Geoffrey's son Alexander joined a revolt against Roger II in 1132, but he fled before the advance of the king to Byzantium and left his son Geoffrey in Matera, whose inhabitants gave the city away to avoid being massacred by the royal troops. Alexander later took part in the Byzantine invasion of Italy in 1156. Lombard aristocrats survived with a reduced status: around 1150, Guaimar (III) of Capaccio, a descendant of Lombard princes, held a sub-fief near Matera from the count of Montescaglioso. Meanwhile, after a period of association with the Byzantine metropolis of Otranto from 968, the episcopal see of Matera was reclaimed by the archbishopric of Acerenza. A new cathedral church of St Eustace was consecrated in May 1082.
After a short communal phase and a series of pestilences and earthquakes, the city became an Aragonese possession in the fifteenth century, and on 1 October 1497, the city was sold to Giancarlo Tramontano. In 1514, however, the population rebelled against the oppression and killed Count Giovanni Carlo Tramontano. In the seventeenth century Matera was handed over to the Orsini family and then became part of the Terra d'Otranto, in Apulia. Later it was capital of the province of Basilicata, a position it retained until 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte assigned it to Potenza.
In 1927, it became capital of the new province of Matera.
Until the late 1980s the Sassi was still considered an area of poverty, since its dwellings were, and in most cases still are, uninhabitable and dangerous. The present local administration, however, has become more tourism-orientated, and it has promoted the regeneration of the Sassi as a picturesque tourist attraction with the aid of the Italian government, UNESCO, and Hollywood. In 2008, the city began the candidacy process for a European Capital of Culture in 2019; it was designated one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2019 on 17 October 2014. Today there are many thriving businesses, pubs, and hotels there, and the city is amongst the fastest growing in southern Italy.
Matera Cathedral (1268–1270) has been dedicated to Santa Maria della Bruna since 1389. Built in an Apulian Romanesque architectural style, the church has a 52 m tall bell tower, and next to the main gate is a statue of the Maria della Bruna, backed by those of Saints Peter and Paul. The main feature of the façade is the rose window, divided by sixteen small columns. The interior is on the Latin cross plan, with a nave and two aisles. The decoration is mainly from the eighteenth century Baroque restoration, but recently a Byzantine-style fourteenth-century fresco portraying the Last Judgement has been discovered.
Two other important churches in Matera, both dedicated to the Apostle Peter, are San Pietro Caveoso (in the Sasso Caveoso) and San Pietro Barisano (in the Sasso Barisano). San Pietro Barisano was recently restored in a project by the World Monuments Fund, funded by American Express. The main altar and the interior frescoes were cleaned, and missing pieces of mouldings, reliefs, and other adornments were reconstructed from photographic archives or surrounding fragments. World Monuments Fund – Rupestrian Churches of Puglia and the City of Matera
There are many other churches and monasteries dating back throughout the history of the Christian church. Some are simple caves with a single altar, occasionally accompanied by a fresco, often located on the opposite side of the ravine. Some are complex cave networks with large underground chambers, thought to have been used for meditation by the rupestrian and cenobitic monks.
The largest cistern has been found under Piazza Vittorio Veneto, the Palombaro Lungo that was built in 1832. With its solid pillars carved from the rock and a vault height of more than fifteen metres, it is a veritable water cathedral, which is navigable by boat. Like other cisterns in the town, it collected rainwater that was filtered and flowed in a controlled way to the Sassi.
There were also a large number of little superficial canals that fed pools and hanging gardens. Moreover, many bell-shaped cisterns in dug houses were filled up by seepage. Later, when the population increased, many of these cisterns were turned into houses and other kinds of water-harvesting systems were realised.
Some of these more recent facilities have the shape of houses submerged in the earth.Museo Laboratorio della Civiltà Contadina ONLUS (2025). 9781500611569, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. . ISBN 9781500611569
The San Giuliano Regional Reserve, a protected area established in 2000, includes Lake San Giuliano, an artificial reservoir created by the damming of the Bradano river, and the river sections upstream and downstream of it. (2025). 9780007419135, Times Books. ISBN 9780007419135
The Tramontano Castle, begun in the early sixteenth century by Gian Carlo Tramontano, Count of Matera, is probably the only other structure that is above ground of any great significance outside the sassi. However, the construction remained unfinished after his assassination in the popular riot of 29 December 1514. It has three large towers, while twelve were probably included in the original design. During some restoration work in the main square of the town, workers came across what were believed to be the main footings of another castle tower. However, on further excavation large Roman cisterns were unearthed. Whole house structures were discovered where one may see how the people of that era lived.
The Palazzo dell'Annunziata is a historical building on the main square, seat of Provincial Library.
Some dishes from the local cuisine include:
Different hypotheses are attributed to the name of Madonna della Bruna: the first says that the noun derives from the Lombard high-medieval term brùnja (armor/protection of knights). So the name might mean Madonna of defense. Another hypothesis is that the name comes from herbon, a city of Giudea, where the Virgin went to visit her cousin Elisabetta. A third hypothesis says that the name comes from the colour of the Virgin's face. The profane insertions such as the navalis wagon and its violent destruction, along with the intimacy and the religious solemnity, suggest this festival shares roots with ancient traditions of other Mediterranean countries. For example, in Greek culture, wedding parties also celebrate with a triumphal wagon ( ships on wheels richly designed). The Madonna's sculpture is located in a case in the transept of the cathedral dedicated to her, where there is also a fresco that portrays her. It dates back to the thirteenth century and it belongs to the Byzantine school.
Bus connection to Italy's main cities is provided by private firms.
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