Sassi means Rock. I read somewhere that the Sassi is the oldest, most continuously inhabited city on Earth. It goes back to the stone age. There is a deep ravine/canyon that borders the town called the Gravina, with a river beneath it. Along the sides were many caves which were inhabited by paliolithic man. Long after that, in the 6th century AD, some monks and followers of St Basilius (hence, Basilicata?) fled the Turks and others who had banned represntation of holy images and came to the Sassi to live meditative and communal lives. They created churches within caves, and those churches have very beautiful byzantine images.
In later years, the residents built brick fronts to the caves so that, from afar they look like normal mountain houses. Inside they expanded and reinforced the caves as needed. By the 1930's however, people were starving and living in squaller here. They suffered from malnutrion, malaria and also the disease we see in 3rd world countries where flies live in the eyes... Carlos Levi wrote about 2 lines in his book "Christ Stopped at Eboli" where his sister,, also a doctor, described the conditions in Matera. It caused Italy to be more aware of the problems of Il Sud di Italia (the South of Italy).
By the 1950's they had evicted people from the Sassi, and had built other "project" style apartments in the main city. The main city is ugly... Margaret said it was worse than Mexico. But then, suddenly we drove into the Sassi district which is magnificant. There are several "real" churches and also the very old churches, restaurants, b&b's, residences, and there are still many many buildings which have not been rehabilitated.
Mel Gibson chose this town to film "the passion of the christ" because he said it looked older than Jerusulam. I think it is at least as old as Jerusulam. Surprisingly, they do allow cars to drive the very very narrow streets. I don't know what you would do if you ran into a car coming the other way!
Its even more magical at night. Enjoy!
Maria
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment