Matera, Italy is home to the sassi, a fantastic version of a human anthill, an entire city of cave-houses dug out of soft tufa, rising out of an ancient river channel, a dream city frought with the gray nightmare of poverty. The land around this corner of Basilicata yields little.
When Carlo Levi was exiled to the area by Mussolini for his anti-fascist views, he wrote of his experience in his most famous literary work, "Christ Stopped at Eboli." The title meaning, of course, that Italy's bleak south couldn't have possibly been visited by Christ. And when you read the description of the futile and at times superhuman effort put forth by peasants descending the steep ravine out of the village of Aliano to scratch out a living from this unyielding landscape, you'd have to give a nod to the apparent absence of salvation in this corner of Italy's Basilicata region.
Ironically, Matera has in recent times become a stomping ground for filmmakers searching for a biblical landscape, and finding it in the abandoned sassi of Matera.
Forty years ago, Pier Paolo Pasolini shot "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" here. When Mel Gibson first saw Matera, he envisioned the sassi caves as the perfect backdrop for his Jerusalem sets. In fact, Gibson used some of the same locations as Pasolini when filming "The Passion of The Christ."
UNESCO calls the Sassi of Matera "the most outstanding, intact example of a troglodyte settlement in the Mediterranean region, perfectly adapted to its terrain and ecosystem. The first inhabited zone dates from the Palaeolithic, while later settlements illustrate a number of significant stages in human history."
Tour Matera, the Sassi and the filming locations of The Passion of The Christ
Why not see what all the fuss is about? Matera is accessible by air from the airport at Bari, or by train. Nearby is the interesting city of Alberobello in Puglia, with its interesting stone buildings called trulli.
But maybe your best bet is to be shown the movie locations by people who've been following the shooting of "The Passion of The Christ." An interesting six day Tour of Matera with the movie in mind is available from sassiweb at a reasonable price, variable with your choice of lodging (you can stay at a hotel carved in the rock, the hotel where Gibson was lodged, or the fancier one where the crew partied!). If you don't take the tour, I highly recommend a guide once you get to Matera.
The web site also has some pretty good pictures of the sets of the movie as well.
Matera Visitor Information
See our Matera guide, and don't miss the Festa della Madonna Bruna in early July!
Matera Pictures
We have 8 annotated pictures of Matera in our Matera Picture Gallery.
