Sextantio, le Grotte della Civita, Matera, Basilicata

Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita is a Design Hotel set in prehistoric caves. 19 rooms. The Sextantio luxury hotel is comprised of a series of spacious rooms cut directly into the bare Tufa Rock. The Sextantio le Grotte della Civita is the perfect spot for a relaxing and languorous getaway. You'll have ample opportunity to explore; the city of Matera boasts some beautiful traditional town squares and churches as well as a plethora of eating and drinking establishments. The local countryside is a rich and verdant area of stunning scenery with plunging gorges and soaring cliff faces with a diverse and beautiful flora and fauna that amply rewards exploration.

MATERA – From Stone Age Settlement to UNESCO World Heritage Site.​

The Sassi of Matera are a fascinating  complex of rocks, caverns and grottoes - a hidden world which you enter from the underbelly.  They are a stark contrast with the city of Matera - the traditional Mediterranean town with its monuments, palaces and great churches that look down on the underworld of the Sassi.

Shoulder hugging, precipitous alleyways snake though the stony Sassi city, creating an unmatchable cityscape.  The houses, with their varied architecture of windows, arches, balconies and terraces,  have a disparate charm – a city of light, colour and shade where man and place come together in elegant harmony.

In 1993 this unique environment became Southern Italy’s first UNESCO world heritage site – and the first in the world to be declared a “cultural landscape”.

Matera can trace its history back to the Stone Age. The earliest signs of human life were uncovered in the ravine which runs though the area – in a place called the “Bat’s Grotto”  which dates back to the Palaeothic era. 

In the Bronze and Iron Age - near a rocky spur inside a natural rainwater reservoir -  a rupestre village developed.   A rock habitation, four hundred metres above sea level - the first settlement on the Civita area of the Sassi of Matera.

During the Greek and Roman era there was no development in Matera, and the city became little more than an agricultural outpost. But in the Medieval period the Lombards arrived, and the city grew, reinforcing its strategic position on the edge of Byzantine Puglia.   High walls surrounded a thriving centre, a fortress populated by administrators, politicians and soldiers.

During this period the area consolidated.  Benedictine monks created a series of chiese rupestri - some 120 stone churches which can be seen in and around Matera.   Anchorites from the east arrived  - the solitude of the stony hills  an ideal place for their mystic, hermetic lives.    

The  meeting between the Latin and Byzantine culture in this area -  known as the Murgia -   was given artistic expression in a beguiling mixture of architecture  that  fascinates the modern visitor.   Churches developed with a combined architectural heritage -  using strict geometric Latin lines, but bedecked with lively, colourfully tinted frescoes that reflect the artistic styles of Asia Minor.

From 1000AD, with the arrival of the Normans, the city moved into a new phase of development.  Farmers’ houses sprang up around the Civita, and the town split into two distinct areas: the Sasso Caveoso and the Sasso Barisano.
In the 14th century city walls circled the town, and the Romanesque cathedral which still dominates the city (later remodeled in Baroque style) was  built.  Churches grew up around the city, including the beautiful San Giovanni Battista and San Domenico, as well as the cave churches known as rupestri and a series of Puglian-Romanesque monasteries.


In the 15th and 16th centuries the town moved beyond the city walls,  taking on the appearance it has today.    The populated centre around the cathedral expanded into the valley where the Piazza del Sedile was built.  

This process continued over time, with powerful and thriving religious orders creating some exceptional monuments -  including the churches of San Francesco D’Assisi and Santa Chiara.  Of particular note is Palazzo Lanfranchi; built as a seminary at the end of the 17th century, it has been restored as The Museum of Medieval and Modern Art of Basilicata. 

During the 16th century Count Giancarlo Tramontano built a castle next to the Piazza del Sedile, but when he was assassinated the work stopped.  Today several towers are still standing.

In the 16th century the two areas of the Sassi changed profoundly.  The urban centres developed,  taking on their familiar shape. The need for new homes meant that every space was utilized. Houses spread along the rocky hillside of the Civita, reaching down to the bottom of the ravine.  With limited means, the peasant classes adapted the rocky terrain into living spaces, with  built facades covering cave houses.  The Sassi became urbanised, abandoning their rural aspect - trees and allotments gave way to construction

Some fine buildings were created -  with porticos, balconies and elegant balustrades.  Over the coming centuries the city grew, and Matera – the principal town of Basilicata - took its place at the heart of the region. New neighbourhoods grew up,  and the city became the largest centre in Baslicata with 12,000 inhabitants.

During the 18th century,  however, the Sassi’s economy and ecology – which had sustained people for centuries – started to decline.  Urban overcrowding and an agricultural crisis reduced the standard of living for the inhabitants.  Population growth in the Sassi was unsustainable. This led to problems with water as wells and cave reservoirs were converted into habitations.

A lack of a proper drainage system and the cramped living conditions -  with man and animal living alongside each other -  meant that the ancient cave churches were frequently used as houses. Conditions continued to worsen,  and in the 1940s the writer Carlo Levi vividly described the rank and miserable poverty of Matera in his classic novel Christ Stopped at Eboli.

The pitiful existence in the Sassi reached its nadir; a baby born here had poor prospects.    In 1940s Italy an average of ten  babies in a hundred died at birth.  In Matera the infant mortality rate was  46 per hundred.  Nearly 50%. 

Carlo Levi’s book brought the squalid conditions in the Sassi to national attention.  Cultural figures and politicians were shocked.  The Italian communist leader Palmiro Togliatti visited in 1948 and Prime Minister De Gasperi came in 1952.  De Gasperi signed special legislation to transfer the residents of the Sassi to new houses.  Fifteen thousand people, two thirds of the residents, were expected to leave their houses and move into a new neighbourhood created for them.

Homes in the Sassi became the property of the state. The two historic neighbourhoods were left completely empty.  From the 1960s the area was abandoned and falling apart, with local politicians unable or unwilling to take care of this extraordinary heritage.  It was only in the second half of the 1980s that the need to intervene,  save and conserve this historic area came to public attention.

In 1993 the Sassi were placed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites – the first place in the world to be declared a cultural landscape. The Sassi were seen as a model of how man can live in balance with the environment – an example of sustainable living. Today if someone wants to restore a house in the Sassi they must follow a strict code which sets down procedures for the conservation of historic buildings.  A philosophy designed to preserve this extraordinary heritage.