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 Al centro la Civita, sperone roccioso che separa i due Sassi, sulla cui sommità si trova la Cattedrale. Un paesaggio in parte invisibile e vertiginoso, perché va in apnea in dedali di gallerie dentro la pietra giallo paglierino del dorso della collina, per secoli difesa naturale e ventre protettivo di una città che sembra uscita dal mistero di una fiaba orientale. "Grotte naturali, architetture ipogee, cisterne, enormi recinti trincerati, masserie, chiese e palazzi, si succedono e coesistono, scavati e costruiti nel tufo delle gravine" scrive Pietro Laureano nel suo libro Giardini di pietra.

The "City of Stone" the old town of Matera dug near the ravine, is in fact inhabited at least since Neolithic times: some of the artifacts found date back 10 thousand years ago, and many houses that descend deep into the soft limestone and also( calcarenite) in the canyon, is inhabited without interruption since the Bronze Age (apart from the forced displacement of the inhabitats in the fifties). The first definition of "Sasso/ stone" as an inhabited stone-area was discovered in a document of 1204.
  The Sassi are indeed a "cultural landscape", to quote the definition with which they were received into the List of World Heritage of UNESCO. Sasso Barisano (movie), was shot in north-west edge of the cliffs, and it has  Civita as a reference, the center of the old city, that is the richest and with friezes and carved portals that hide the core underground. Sasso Caveoso, looking on to the south, arranged like a Roman amphitheater, with its cave dwellings which descend like a stair- terraces, and perhaps takes its name from the quarries and the classic theatres.

At the center the Civita, a rocky outcrop that separates the two stone-areas, on top of which is the Cathedral. A landscape partly invisible and overwhelming, because it goes into mazes of tunnels inside the yellow stone of the back of the hill for centuries of natural defense and protection of a city that seems to come out of the mystery of a tale from Eastern Europe. "Natural caves, architectural tombs, cisterns, dug fences, farms, churches and palaces, together and coexisting, excavated and built into the canyon," says Pietro Laureano, in his book Gardens of Stone.

Places of interest near Sassi di Matera

-  The Cathedral: in Romanesque style, built in the thirteenth century on the spur of the highest Civita dividing the stone-areas, above the ancient church of Saint-Eustache, one of the two patron saints of the city.
-  The church of San Giovanni Battista: built in 1233, in Romanesque style.
-  The church of San Francesco d'Assisi: almost completely rebuilt in 1670 in baroque style. Inside there is the ancient crypt of St. Peter and Paul.
-  The churches on the rocks: in the city and along the canyons of the Park of Murgia Matera, there are about 150 churches carved into the rock. Among the most important are S. Lucia alle Malve, il Convicinio di S. Antonio, S. Barbara, la Madonna delle Virtù, all in the rocks. Outside the city, in open countryside, there is the Crypt of the Original Sin, recently restored, with an exceptional painting cycle of frescoes covering the walls to the left and bottom.

-  The tombs in the Vittorio Veneto square, they are located beneath the main square of the town and came to light only a few yearsago , there are also numerous gravechambers and as well as an ancient underground cistern also called the long diver and a tower that is part of the wall of the Tramontano-Castle.
- The castle of Tramontano: Aragonese style, with three towers, remained unfinished for the murder of Count Tramontano by the population in 1514.
- The Lanfranchi-building, seventeenth-century monument built by Brother Francis of Cupertino on the orders of the Bishop Vincenzo Lanfranchi between 1668 and 1672. There are the paintings of some major artists such as Carlo Levi, Camillo D'Errico, Abraham Brueghel, Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo and Mattia Preti.

- The convent of Sant'Agostino, Italian national monument, located in Sasso Barisano and built in 1593, with the homonym church, in the ancient crypt of St. Julian's rock dating from the twelfth century (wrongly registred as the crypt of Saint William because of a historical error).

- National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art is housed, along with D'Errico Picture Gallery and the Center "Carlo Levi", in the premises of the seventeenth century Palazzo Lanfranchi. 

-National Archaeological Museum "Domenico Ridola" contains material that derives mainly from the territory of Matera and is of particular interest for the study of prehistory in southern italy and of the cultures and indigenous peoples (Enotria and Lucan) that came into contact with the Greek colonies on the Ionian coast.

- MUSMA Museo della scultura contemporanea di Matera  (Museum of Contemporary Sculpture in Matera)
- Museum and workshop of the agricultural sociaty.

- Museum of Medieval Torture

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Do you want to come on holiday to the area of Sassi di Matera /The stonetowns of Matera?

With our service "Get the best offer" you can with a single click, contact tens of tourist-facilities in the area of Sassi di Matera.

So if you are looking for a hotel-accommodation for your trip to  MATERA and /or  SASSI DI MATERA to enjoy all the natural and archeologic beauty of the Basilicata...

JUST FILL OUT THE FORM! That way you will send your request to all the conventioned establishment like hotels, B&B, agritourism... and that you can just choose the best offer!