The Oldest Inhabited Cave-City in Europe: Matera, Italy

Modern Life in a Cave: The Sassi of Matera

We are now visiting a very unusual place, located on the instep of Italy's boot. 

Matera is the name of this very unusual city in Basilicata (Lucania), Italy.  It is thought to be the oldest continuously-inhabited settlement in Europe (over 9,000 years). It also had the distinction of being one of the most deprived and impoverished areas in Italy until the latter part of the 20th century. 

looking across gorge from Sassi, Matera (Janet Strayer close-up photo zoom)

The oldest, perhaps most interesting part of Matera contains the Sassi (the Rocks), two areas along a precipice deposited on either side of a deep gorge. This area of highly porous limestone resulted in many caves and houses dug into the precipices. It is the ancient and continuous habitation of these caves and dwellings in the Sassi that finally put Matera on the modern map. It is now a designated UNESCO site (click link for what we missed).

Bad Weather

We picked a bad time to go to Matera. But it was the time we had free, and we'd made reservations online (non-refundable).  The weather wasn't too bad when we left our comfy place in Lecce: just overcast and drizzling. Basilicata province borders Lecce in Puglia, so how much worse could it get? No big deal. But the drizzling rain turned  to big, wet smudges of snow on the windshield as we neared Matera. In fact, we'd picked one of the worst times to travel. Today's headline (Feb. 26 as I write in Matera) from The Guardian International Edition reads:"Beast from the east' brings snow and frosty weather across Europe: Schools closed and transport disrupted as temperatures plunge across continent" 

The Travelling Attitude: Weather the Storm!

The worst time ever to travel! As seasoned travellers, though, we thought we could weather the storm. Part of the art of travelling is an optimistic, exploratory mindset without too many expectations. I think this is because you have to keep going, in any case; so you lower the bar of your expectations or you reframe them. That meant we were NOT ging to take the tour we'd wanted up and down and in and out of the many caves in what's known as the Sassi districts, and we were not going to see the famed Byzantine-frescoed cave sites scattered throughout the precipices forming the Sassi. But at least we were going to see a possibly more "genuine" Matera in all its cold and wet and grey reality. We would experience a very small bit of what the winter (one day of it, anyway) was like for those who had lived here year round ... and under much worse conditions than a pre-heated hotel room! So, with our re-booted expectations held firmly much lower than we'd originally hoped, we travelled onward.

A few kilometers before we reached Matera, we saw some strange out-croppings of eroded rocks and barren land that could be imagined as moonscapes. It had a very harsh attraction, even (or especially) on this overcast day that blocked out sky and sun. But, like other travellers, we were intent upon having our modern troglodyte experience.

Many years ago, we'd been to Cappadocia in Turkey, a similarly eroded landscape that also had archaeological traces of  Neolithic cave settlement (but were no longer lived-in). It also contained interesting frescoes tucked into oddly shaped caves in the rocks. But that was in the light of the sun. We'd even bathed our feet in thermal springs there. 

Sassi, Matera (Janet Strayer photo, Feb 26, 2018)

No such luck here and now. It was bleak when we got to Matera.The temperature was about -5 C. It felt even colder walking around the Sassi. The wind blew smacks of wet snow at us. All around us was cold stone and highly porous  rock. There was nowhere to go. Nearly everything was sensibly closed. Only a handful of  bundled-up people were visible, all of us taking photos with gloves on. This could get claustrophobic, I thought,  as I had to watch my steps along the very slippery stone pavements and steps along the rockface. Everything in stone and everything leading to more stone strata , now with houses (once caves) tucked into the porous rocks. Looking down, more stone precipice. 

 

This worn and harsh terrain is the landscape used for biblical dramas like Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) and  Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004), as well as the Amazon's city in Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman (2017). There is something other-worldly in its severity and lack of softness. Many have  taken what shelter they could in its many caves. And some have been exiled  here.

Carlo Levi, self portrait (part of painting)

This area became home to Carlo Levi, the Italian doctor, painter, writer (Christ Stopped At Eboli), and activist who was exiled near here as a Jewish and anti-Fascist political prisoner. Levi's penetrating description of the daily hardships and deplorable conditions experienced by the often starving, malaria-infested, and stalwart people who endured in this region helped to propel the inequities of Italy's southern regions to national and international attention after WW II. He likened the rock-faced, funnel-like Sassi of Matera to the imagined landscape of Dante's hell. 

the day before the snow hit hard: a piazza in the Sassi, photo by Janet Strayer

Matera now is nothing like the rawness of Levi's description. But neither is it a gentrified place.

night in the Sassi before the snowfall, from screened window in our room, Janet Strayer photo

It seems still to be evolving, with greater cross-Italian and international interest, re-settlement, improved housing conditions and hotels, as well as re-vitalized communities. The once disgraceful state of living conditions here have now been converted into a unique heritage site for the world to see. The New Yorker published an interesting article in 2015 about Matera from the perspective of its locals past and present. As it always does, progress has come at the price of loss.

A national embarrassment, the Italian government in the 1950's forcibly relocated Matera's cave inhabitants to more modern quarters, a move that lacerated their local culture while aimed at improving conditions.

Cathedral atop Sassi precipice in Matera (Janet Strayer photo)

Subsequently, people, including those with means, started moving back into the Sassi, renovating it, and now the European Union supports it with investment and tourism. This remains a site that, in the midst of improvements, well remembers its recent past, visible in historical records and videos, and always in the landscape itself. It is a place worth knowing, but it is not a pleasant place in my regard. You'll read why as events continue. 

ceiling of our room in Sassi of Matera, Janet Strayer photo

We'll remember our visit for several reasons.The night we slept in the Sassi, we felt the coldness of the place, its unforgiving harshness, its stories, its ghosts. The wet snow that greeted our arrival turned overnight into a steady accumulated snowfall. The power went out in our room (we were the only guests). The caretaker served breakfast the next morning and told us to get on the move pronto, before they closed the roads. Trouble was, I felt awful. I'd hit my head at night, without remembering it, and the pillow was bleeding. I'd probably had a concussion and my head ached fiercely. No vehicles could come get us here. We'd have to walk in the snow to a main piazza, and maybe there we could find a cab to take us to the covered lot where we'd left our car before entering the Stassi.  Not on our life. And that's what seemed at stake. Forget about the famed cave-religious paintings which we never got to see. 

Backback and bag in tow, we did our best. Me, with toilet tissue inside my hat that padded my bloody head, and with a stick (a mop handle) I'd taken from the courtyard to help me balance. My partner carried most of our load in his backback. I could barely walk but was highly motivated to get the hell out!

We couldn't find the piazza, having taken one of the many possible wrong turns in the Sassi. We slipped and fell on the slick and slanted stone walks,  snow falling in our eyes. We knew we couldn't be far from the piazza, but we also knew by now that there would be no cabs. They were suddenly part of another world. There was nothing I wanted more right then than to get out of this god-forsaken stone maze. Dante's hell came to my mind... just as it had to Carlo Levi.

We trod down another dispirited route, weary and sore, as a truck was inching its way down the road. Angels picked us up. They were stone-masons who'd been working inside the Cathedral and were going home to their nearby town before the roads officially closed. They didn't know Matera, but did their best to drive us to the parking lot where our car might be. Mercy.

It was the wrong parking lot. And it took us even further away from where we'd parked. We discovered this as we wandered around looking for our car. A woman noticed we'd been circling the lot on foot several times. We'd thought this was the only covered parking lot in Matera, but she told us there was another. It was much too far to walk, especially under present conditions. She resolutely escorted us to the police, located on an upper floor of the parking lot, telling us, in as much Italian dialect as we could understand, that this was absolutely what must be done to get us out of here. 

So there we sat in the police station hallway for several hours. At least we were out of the snow and could drink some water. A female officer told me I should go to the hospital, seeing my blood-matted hair (I'd tried to clean it, but the wound kept opening and hurt to touch). Nope, all I wanted was get out of Madera, thanks. No police cars available. All roads were a mess. We waited, limp in the corridor, deciding that our fate was sealed: we'd have to spend a wretched night in any place that would give us a room, even in the pokey. Several hours later, one very, very kind and competent officer told us he'd managed to order a police car from somewhere. He and his partner drove us through chaotic streets to our car. Mercy again.

We made it out, slowly inching our way among the other cars to the highway.  We followed a van of prison-inmates. It was a rough drive out, but here we are. And now it has become our own true story of a winter night in Matera.  How happy and grateful  to have survived this particular adventure. 

Your comments are always welcome: click below this post where "no comments/comments" is noted.

Regards, Janet @ https://www.janetstrayer.com

 

Unknown Masters in Galatina

Finding the Unexpected

A TV show  brought us to Galatina in Puglia, Italy. We were home in Canada watching a show hosted by Anthony Bourdain on his travels in southern Italy. It featured a small bit of an old documentary that filmed incidents of  tarantism, a peculiar and local form of psychosocial malady affecting some women of the countryside. You can click here to see the original Italian documentary, La Taranta, 

La Taranta shows women seized by an apparently uncontrollable urge to move and keep moving. Witnessed by others in their community, they typically may end up at the local church, where a religious rit may relieve them of their spasms of movement. The dance, the Tarantella, reportedly derives from this malady. Quite different from the rawness of the movements shown in the documentary, the Tarantella dance is a festive celebration. You can read more the fascinating history of this dance in my related column on Taranto.

Galatina  

spider/Taranta motif at restaurant in Galatina

My focus now on Galatina will show you why this city needs special mention. The cult of the Tarante, with  its spider-dance, is only one reason -- though it is a prevalent one, as you can see by its motif adorning a local restaurant.

Galatina has been a focal spot for the preservation and reinvention of the Taranta cult. In late August, tourists may join The Night of the Tarantula (La Nottte della Taranta), an all-night music festival marking the importance of the Tarantella to this area. 

More traditionally in Galatina and surrounding villages, St Paul, patron saint of the tarantate, is celebrated to this day in an all-night event on June 28. It starts with a procession from Piazza San Pietro to the chapel of St Paul, followed by performances by drummers and other musicians lasting until dawn the following day, June 29 – the feast day of saints Peter and Paul. At early dawn the musicians, dancers, tarante and visitors gather at St Paul’s chapel to pay their respects before the crowds arrive for the official early morning Mass.

This Site Came as a Total Surprise: Church of Santa Catherina 

There is another, and for me, even more impressive reason to visit Galatina. And it came as a surprise. 

After a brief but rather dull drive from Lecce, Galatina surprises you as a  pretty city. We looked into its large and expectably-decorated Cathedral of Peter and Paul  (featured in the La Taranta documentary mentioned).  It was impressive outside, but rather grim inside. The real treasure was to come.

We took a moment to peek into the city's perhaps less-known church of Sta. Caterina. I was absolutely blown away by the stunning art I saw, and that I'd never previously known even existed. It was way beyond any expectations I had ...  and that's a real joy when travelling and just exploring for its own sake.

 Unfortunately, the outside of the church was wrapped up for renovation, and you could see nothing of its features. Nevertheless, we walked through the wooden scaffold to find that the interior was open. WOW!

part of ceiling (Janet Strayer photo)

frescoes in Sta. Catarina/Galentina (photos by Janet Strayer)

nave (natural light, Janet Strayer photo)

ornately painted pillars, Sta. Caterina (Janet Strayer photo)
 

The church of Santa Caterina in Galatina is a marvel to behold. Almost every inch of this large church is covered in beautifully intact frescoes. You can insert some coins for  lights come on, and then see almost everything covered in painted narratives. Ceilings, walls, even columns are painted. The style is consistent: a mix of Byzantine and early Renaissance influences that works to make a unique artistic and religious statement.

Gorgeous frescoes occur throughout Italy, with the Sistine Chapel being perhaps the most famous. But on a more intimate yet complete scale, the frescoes here hit home. Not since Fra Angelico's work in Florence or Giotto's in Padua, have I been so impressed by a single structure so completely filled with such interesting and original religious art.

Dating mostly from the early1 5th C, the frescoes are in remarkable shape. Not all were completed, and you can sometimes  see cartoons of the intended works on the prepared walls (an extra attraction for many artists). A few frescoes are in need of repair, but most are perfect. In general, they are just stunning in overall impact, plus they beckon you to come closer and see more.

wall and part ceiling of series of "Mary frescoes" (Janet Strayer photo)

We don't know the artists' names for sure, but they were stylistic masters (click for some suggestions and a good link for photos and text). They must have seen and been influenced in compositional motifs and stylistic concerns by early Renaissance work further north in Italy (Umbria, Tuscany). Yet, their work favours a different palette and the dramatic contrast of night-time settings.Talented in both stylistic and technical matters, the feast of frescoes beckons you to keep looking at them: the faces, the settings depicted, the flow of narrative, the use of space.

The Romanesque-Gothic church of Santa Caterina dates back to the late 1300's, and the frescoes are dated about 1420. Endowed by the wealth of the Count of Solento and his widow, the nave alone consists of a self-contained fresco composition that includes 140 picture compartments. The nave paintings extend across four bays. The largest group  presents the Apocalypse according to St John. It extends across three walls in the first bay of the nave and includes some fifty separate scenes. The Apocalypse is aways a show-stopper, in my opinion. But I'm also drawn to depictions Genesis and Adam and Eve. You can pick your own favourites, as I'm sure the parishioners did when "reading" this extensive pictorial narrative.

 

I took a mass of photos under the poor lighting conditions. I've given you just a taste from a few samples I liked for different reasons: their blend of Byzantine and early Renaissance styles, references to their time (knights' armour),  their refinement, expressive quality, linear emphasis, spatial sense, or composition.

Other fresco series are dedicated to Mary, and yet others to Sta. Caterina. You can find something remarkable in any of them, in the different depictions of John the Baptist, of the slaying of the Dragon, or even of the small touches in the little figures (perhaps patrons) only marginal to the main scene.

incidental figure (Janet Strayer photo)

One can tire of visiting so many notable churches and cathedrals in Italy. But truly, this is one not to miss. 

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy, plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News click  https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet

Taranto, Italy and the Dance of the Spider

Taranto 

You've heard of the dance, the Tarantella? Its origins are an oddity, and  it is linked to Taranto, a small city in Puglia, on Italy's Ionian coast. It's an odd distinction for a town, but that is its fate and fame. Another nearby city in Puglia, Galatina, with similar links to the tarantella -- plus some incredible art worth seeing--  is featured in a separate column here.  

Title still-shot of documentary, credits and link

The Origins of the Tarantella 

The peculiarity of the tarantella is that its origins are associated with a psychic disorder, a form of hysteria, known as tarantism that was recognized in Italy as early as the 15th C.  Tarantism has lingered on in isolated rural areas through the 20th C. This has been recorded n a documentary clip from nearby Galatina the 1950's and aired on TV by another off-beat traveller, Anthony Bourdin. You can click here to see the original Italian documentary, La Taranta, which filmed incidents of tarantism occurring in the nearby countryside. Filmed in the 1950's, it looks much earlier in time and is quite different in its rawness from the holiday tarantellas celebrated in festivals now. 

Spider Bite or Hysteria? 

Said to be caused by the bite of a tarantula spider (a form of wolf-spider or black-widow), its victims  (mostly women) display distressed and feverish symptoms that include vomiting and sweating, fear and delirium, depression and paranoia. They are seemingly cured by a rite that involves feverish 'dancing' that can last for days. It's not so much dancing as it is impulsive, pulsing movement: jumping, hopping, gyrating upright or on the floor. The frenetic movements are accompanied by music played fast, in 6/8 time, with the pace of both music and movements reciprocally urging each other onward, all in  the company of  family and neighbors who attend the seized woman. The often delirious victim, with attendant crowd, eventually is guided to the local church where, still trance-like and tired-out, she is finally 'danced-out 'of her throes with religious help. 

A Fascinating History of a Malady and a Dance 

The tarantella has a fascinating history. It is thought that the town of Taranto, in particular, gave its name to the dance because a particular variety spider, popularly believed to be venomous, was common to this region.So, the dance was  named the tarantula.

Dancing Maenad on Vase by Python, 330 B.C. credits

The origins of the dance, however, may lie much deeper in history and cult. This dance is  speculated to be a surviving remnant from ancient rites of Diana or of Dionysius. 

We know that all of Puglia was originally more Greek than Latin/Roman. By early Roman times, Bacchanalian rites were suppressed, which may have driven them underground ... where they lingered and were transformed into another collective ritual in the cult of Tarantism. What is known for certain is that Tarantism dates back centuries in this region, appearing in early manuscripts. 

The music, originally played on  local  instruments  available  at the time (tambourine, drums, fiddle, accordion, guitar)  developed into folk dance forms. These dances became popular in several regions of southern Italy. In the Salento region, the dance is  also known as the pizzica. 

The tarantella also made its way to the more formal dance-floor for nimble-footed partners. And the stellar choreographer, George Balanchine, adapted it to ballet. Remarkable in its journey from dirt floors to concert halls, the tarantella also appears in the work of such dignified composers as Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin. But the original  forms of the dance, very obscurely caused by a spider's bite, were inspired by each individual's almost hypnotically frenzied, trance-like movements in response to the dancer's delirium, then set to music's beat.

Archaeology in Taranto: the MARTA

We visited Taranto, the city etymologically linked to this curious dance, We were unlikely to see the tarentella danced today. Our motivation for visiting was to see Taranto's well-recommended archaeological museum, the MARTA. 

 a navigation scene with figure carved on cup, 2,000 BC

We were not disappointed. The MARTA  (Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto) is  easy to navigate and fun to explore, with excellent staff to help, if needed. The access and lighting are modern, and the items just enough to give a sense of the particularity of each item and its context. The displays are very well presented (many in English and Italian), with computer-screens that let you look further into particular items and context. 

This is a museum you can appreciate, one that takes both its informative function and audience satisfaction into consideration. We left, feeling both intellectually and aesthetically satisfied. And maybe we even learned a thing or two. Especially notable is how much the language, artifacts, art, and customs derived from ancient Greece (magna-Graecia) and cross-cultural interactions influenced this southern region that is now Italy.

One of the reasons I love museums like MARTA, which focus upon what we call "prehistory" and "protohistory", is that they show as well as inspire a special blend of skillfully investigative research +

imagination in order to unearth, literally, what the displayed objects likely meant when they were fully alive. 

The museum is arranged chronologically as you walk through its levels. Here are some of the many intriguing and beautiful objects in the museum -- a random and non-chronological sampling from photos I took. They include 20,000 year-old figurines of a female/goddess, a polychromed head with its colours intact, anthropomorphic pots from the 6th century B.C., one of the most intricate gold earrings I've seen (4th century B.C.),  a nutcracker in the shape of black hands, representations of African faces ( 3rd-4th century B.C. cross-roads of many cultures), wonderfully designed functional pots from different epochs, and Medusa as she looked across ancient time.

 

Communication and Cross-Cultural Influences

It's a gift to us that a focus of  such museums is to illuminate the earliest forms communication within this region of multiple cultures. We come to appreciate the intents and meanings behind the many quotidian, functional, ceremonial, religious and just plain beautiful objects displayed. 

Given that there are no extant traces of the language that accompanied many of the objects  shown, we're left with marvellous clues to decipher: technological artifacts of the time, items relating to food production/consumption, houses and settlements, burial remains, ritual or ceremonial objects, human adornments, decorative motifs and representations (animal, human, gods), aesthetic styles, art. 

Almost any human act can have both functional and symbolic or ideological meaning, and meanings can change across generations and different communities. In this way, archaeology s remains a living story precisely because it remains open to be deciphered, by us  now... as it was then. 

Quite a time-travel adventure when we visited Taranto!

More Creative Life News

You can read and see more about Italy, plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at Creative Life News click  https://www.janetstrayer.com

Regards, Janet 

 

Ever Want to Hug a House? You Will in Puglia

Unusual Houses in Puglia

I mean it. Really. Have you ever seen a house you wanted to hug? 

That's exactly what I wanted to do upon first seeing a trullo:  I wanted to hug it!

 

Trulli in Alberobello (photo Janet Strayer)

Structures Called Trulli

These unusual stone houses are called Trulli. Their conical stone structure is so distinct, diminutive and charming that it forms a category unto itself. I'd even say these houses are adorable, easily skipping into the world of fantasy hobbits and elves, except for the fact that they are quite real. And inhabited by real people. 

The name, trulo,  derives from the Greek word for dome. In contast to hobbitland, they are, and have been for centuries, functional houses serving the needs of their inhabitants ...  as well as bringing delight to visitors. They merit a whole area of Puglia devoted to them.

Alborobello is a World Heritage Site

Travelling  a bit more than hour from our home-base in Lecce (Puglia) is Alborobello, a UNESCO world heritage cite. It is a city put on the map by its trulli. All around this area, you can find trulli scattered throughout the countryside. In Alborobello, one finds their densest concentration.

a congregation of trulli  (photo by Janet Strayer)

The Scenic Drive

The route to Alborobello from Lecce is interesting, presenting a change from flat to hilly to steeper and greener terrain, with winding mountain passes that get snow (I saw road signs warning of its eventuality). The area is a distinct change of scenery from further south, and  it is home to many nature walks in the woods. It was taking this drive that I realised how much I missed large masses of green and trees. Seems the ancient Romans de-natured the once-forested south of Italy (and Sicily), uprooting the trees to build ships. Ah yes, the lessons of history...

streets of trulli, Arborobello (Janet Strayer photos)

It makes one smile to see a cluster of trulli from a distance. I imagined a whole village of small persons with pointed hats. Not so, of course. The trullo is a unique example of ancient architecture that survives and functions in today's world. Nowadays, several trulli can be seen joined into quite fantastic, castle-like residences with charmingly curved courtyards. There are trulli hotels, though you can also stay in a small trulli B&B. Their conical roofs are are made of horizonatal slabs of limestone, positioned in a series of diminishing concentric circles, and often mounted by a decorative feature.

trullo roof stones (Janet Strayer photo)

Inside a Trullo

I wanted to get a feeling for the more modest trullo, as it might have been in the past. One was open for vistors, allowing us to see  how remarkable it was inside as well as out. I was amazed by how compact and comfortable it was. The structure's interior is distributed around its central space without any additional elements of support -- like the modern concept of open-space interior, but with arched ceilings separating modular units in this space. The "rooms"  (without doors) are identified by changing curves in the wall, each one mounted by a high coned ceiling. Standing was comfortable and, though each room was tiny, each was sufficient to its purpose, explained to me as the central living area,  kitchen-dining-area, adult bedroom, children's bedroom. The walls' thickness and the scarcity of windows functions to promote thermal regulation: warm in winter, cool in summer.
 

History of Trulli Structures

Trulli have been recorded in archaeological finds as preshistoric burial sites, among other things, and their construction is not complex--- but building them to endure stably is a skill (link to read more). Made of limestone rocks built up concentrically into ever smaller circles, their bases are now grafted with limestone masonry.

But why should they have remained distinctly prominent in this region? Their historical origins as a settlement of houses in Alborobello date back to the 14th century. The story is that this form of construction, known from earliest times, was used because it is free-standing dry wall  (no mortar) that can be readily constructed (and dismantled). Those qualities, plus the abundance of white limestone in the area, could serve the needs of hasty settlers, eager to take advantage of land grants while evading building taxes. 

Locorotondo

Leaving Alborobello, we made a brief stop in nearly Locorotondo ("round place"), heralded as one of the most beautiful small cities in Italy... and one of the whitest. Some of Italy's fine wines can be found in this area.

Although trulli can also been seen here, my lasting impression of this city is of well cared-for, simple white houses, calmly positioned in a circular city plan. 

We stopped for a machiatto at an fine little coffee bar facing the little park atop the city, taking a look down at the scenic valley before continuing "home" to Lecce.

I'm eager to see what comes next. Until then...

 More Creative Life News

You can read and see more recent posts about Italy plus other travels and creative adventures by this itinerant artist at my  Creative Life News site here.