Matera is weird. It’s beautiful, sure, but it’s fundamentally strange. When you stand on the edge of the Murgia plateau and look across the ravine, you aren't just looking at a city; you're looking at a vertical labyrinth where one person's floor is another person's roof. For decades, this place was called the "shame of Italy." Now, everyone wants a piece of it. But if you really want to understand how this place functioned before the luxury hotels and the Michelin stars moved in, you have to step into a casa grotta nei Sassi di Matera.
It’s damp. That’s the first thing you notice. Even on a blistering July afternoon in Basilicata, the air inside these limestone caverns feels heavy and cool. It smells like wet stone and history.
Honestly, calling it a "house" feels like a stretch by modern standards. It was a single room. Just one. And in that one room, you’d find a family of ten, a mule, some chickens, and maybe a pig if they were doing well. It sounds like a nightmare, doesn't it? Well, for the people living there until the forced evacuations of the 1950s, it was just Tuesday.
The brutal reality of the casa grotta nei Sassi di Matera
We tend to romanticize the past. We see the soft glow of the Sassi at night and think it looks like a fairy tale. It wasn't. The casa grotta nei Sassi di Matera was an exercise in extreme survival. Because the dwellings were carved directly into the calcarenite rock, there was almost no ventilation. Sunlight only made it a few feet past the doorway.
The layout was basically a masterclass in spatial efficiency. You’d have a massive high bed—high enough to shove chests of drawers or even small animals underneath—and a dining table in the center. The "kitchen" was often just a small hearth with no chimney, meaning the walls were perpetually stained with soot.
Water was the biggest headache. Since there was no plumbing, families relied on an intricate system of cisterns. They collected rainwater from the roofs and filtered it through the rock. It was ingenious, but it wasn't exactly sterile. By the time Alcide De Gasperi and Palmiro Togliatti visited Matera in the post-war era, the infant mortality rate was hovering around 50%. People were dying of malaria and trachoma because the living conditions were so cramped and unsanitary.
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Why the mule stayed inside
You might wonder why on earth anyone would keep a large work animal in their bedroom. It wasn't because they loved the smell. The mule was a family's most valuable asset. If the mule died or got stolen, the family starved. Keeping it inside the casa grotta nei Sassi di Matera kept it safe from thieves and provided a primitive form of central heating. During the winter, the body heat from a thousand-pound animal made a massive difference in a room with stone walls that bled cold.
The "manure problem" was handled by a small dugout area at the back of the cave, lower than the living floor. They used everything. Waste was fertilizer. Nothing was thrown away because there was nowhere for "away" to be.
The 1952 exodus and the ghost city years
Things changed because of a book. Carlo Levi wrote Christ Stopped at Eboli, and suddenly the whole world realized that people in southern Italy were living in caves like it was the Bronze Age. The Italian government was embarrassed. In 1952, they passed a special law to evacuate the Sassi.
Thousands of people were moved into "modern" housing projects like Spine Bianche. You’d think they’d be thrilled. Some were. But many elderly residents had to be literally dragged out. They missed the vicinato—the shared courtyards where everyone looked after everyone else’s kids.
For nearly thirty years, the Sassi were a ghost town. They were officially closed off. Squatters moved in, artists started hiding out there, and the casa grotta nei Sassi di Matera fell into ruin. It wasn't until the 1980s that people realized these caves weren't just a symbol of poverty; they were an architectural marvel of bioclimatic design.
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Seeing the real deal at Vico Solitario
If you go to Matera today, you'll see plenty of signs for "Casa Grotta." The most famous—and arguably the most authentic—is the Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario. It’s located in the Sasso Caveoso district.
What makes Vico Solitario worth the few euros for a ticket is the stuff they’ve kept inside. You see the original looms, the ceramic chamber pots, and the tiny "studiolo" areas carved into the walls. They play a recorded narration in several languages that explains how the snow was collected in deep pits to keep food cold during the summer. It’s not a museum of "pretty things." It’s a museum of how to live when you have absolutely nothing but a hammer, a chisel, and a lot of grit.
Architecture without architects
The Sassi are often cited as one of the best examples of "spontaneous architecture." No one sat down with a blueprint to design a casa grotta nei Sassi di Matera. They were carved out based on the needs of the family at that moment. If a son got married, they just dug further back into the mountain to create a new alcove.
This led to a "subtractive" style of building. Instead of adding bricks, you removed earth. The thermal mass of the limestone is incredible—it stays around 15 degrees Celsius (59°F) year-round. It’s naturally energy-efficient, though the humidity is the trade-off.
Modern architects like Renzo Piano have actually studied the Sassi to understand how ancient urban cooling systems worked. The way the houses are stacked allows for "ventilation chimneys" and the management of thermal currents. It’s a sophisticated city built by people who mostly couldn’t read or write.
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Common misconceptions about cave living
People often ask if it was dark all the time. Sorta. But the inhabitants were rarely home during the day. Men were in the fields; women were in the vicinato washing clothes or prepping food. The cave was for sleeping and surviving.
Another big myth is that everyone was "poor" in the same way. There was a hierarchy. The people in the deeper, darker caves were at the bottom. Those with houses that had a "built" facade—where a stone front was added to the cave opening—were the middle class of the Sassi. They had more prestige because they could afford to buy or cut stone blocks rather than just digging.
How to visit without being a "tourist"
If you want to actually feel the soul of a casa grotta nei Sassi di Matera, don't just rush through.
- Go early or late. The tour groups hit the main caves between 10 AM and 4 PM. If you go right when they open or just before they close, the silence of the cave hits differently.
- Look at the ceilings. You can still see the pickaxe marks from the men who carved these rooms by hand.
- Check out the water channels. Outside the entrance of many caves, you’ll see little grooves in the stone. These were the veins of the city, directing every drop of water into the underground cisterns (palombaro).
- Visit the Palombaro Lungo. While not a "house," this giant underground cathedral of water shows the scale of the engineering that supported the cave dwellings.
Matera isn't a museum; it’s a comeback story. In 1993, it became a UNESCO World Heritage site. In 2019, it was the European Capital of Culture. The very caves that people were ashamed of are now the reason the city is thriving.
Practical Steps for Your Visit
If you're planning to explore a casa grotta nei Sassi di Matera, start at the Sasso Caveoso. This area feels more "rugged" and has more original cave structures compared to the more renovated Sasso Barisano.
- Vico Solitario: The gold standard for historical accuracy.
- Casa Grotta del Casalnuovo: Great for seeing how a larger family unit functioned.
- The Rupestrian Churches: Many of these were also used as dwellings or storage after they stopped being places of worship. Santa Lucia alle Malve is a must-see for the frescoes that have survived the dampness for centuries.
The story of the casa grotta nei Sassi di Matera is ultimately about resilience. It’s about a community that took the literal rock under their feet and turned it into a home. It wasn't easy, it wasn't always pretty, but it was theirs. When you walk through those narrow doorways today, you’re stepping into a space where every inch of stone was fought for. Don't just take a photo—stand still for a second and imagine ten people and a mule sharing that air. It changes how you look at your own home.