The image of Matera is linked above all to the ‘Sassi’, which are rocky installations developed from the High Middle Ages along the steed tuff walls of the Gravina stream. Benedictine and Greek monks lived in the caves, previously used by the prehistoric man. Successively an inhabited area of peasants developed there too. This settlement occupies two natural amphitheatres, the ‘Sasso Caveoso’ and the ‘Sasso Barisano’, separated by a spur on which the Cathedral rises. Before excessive rudeness conditions forced the inhabitants to evacuate in 1952, the ‘Sassi’ represented a complex example of integration between the man and the nature through technical and urban innovating solutions. It is possible to admire them in their original splendour once again, after their urban recovery. Visiting the ‘Sassi’, the plenty and the richness of churches, palaces, buildings dug in the rock and balconies acting as roofs of lower buildings are really amazing. (APT Basilicata)
