Exciting Sassi of Matera Tour with Guide Brunella

The Church of San Francesco d'Assisi is a Baroque Catholic place of worship in Matera, located in the central Piazza San Francesco.

The Cathedral of Matera, which has the official name of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Bruna and St. Eustace, is the main place of Catholic worship in Matera, the mother church of the Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina. The cathedral was built in Apulian Romanesque style in the 13th century on the highest spur of the Civita that divides the two Sassi.

It is a beautiful frescoed Rock Church. The church of Madonna delle Grazie is located in the Via del Sasso Caveoso in Matera. The church was formerly named after St. Eustace. The entrance includes a terracotta bas-relief representing the Madonna and Child. The interior of the rock church has an imposing Baroque altar placed at the original iconostasis. Behind the altar we find a rock wall with several openings that lead to the sacristy; once there was the chancel. In the ceiling there are two carved domes and visible apse arches. On the right wall there is a Crucifixion, now ruined, under which there is a faded fresco. The figure of Christ is accompanied DA two angels and at the foot of it are: the Mother and John. On another wall is represented St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata. The corresponding wall, however, shows a painting of Saint Lucia.

The Casa Grotta is the typical house of the Sassi built partially by digging into the rock and partially built. In the Casa Grotta del Casalnuovo you can experience a real house of the Sassi through its original furniture and the tools of daily use that the family that lived there used in everyday life until 1958. It is a real ethnographic collection, a small museum with objects of common use and work from the times when the Sassi were inhabited, before the depopulation that occurred in the fifties. Inside, the original rooms and furnishings of the house are reconstructed before the ancient districts were depopulated in the late 1950s.

The current Piazza del Sedile was called Piazza Maggiore until the 14th century, and there was space especially for commercial activity, with the headquarters of the Point of Sale. In 1550, according to some sources, the Saracen Bishop decided to build a palace intended to host the meetings of the city government. Around the Palazzo del Sedile a new form was given to the square itself, building (or modifying) some buildings, with the intention of hosting some functions of government of the city itself. Among others, the prisons were located in the Square, the seat of the Governor and the garrison. The Palazzo del Sedile and the Piazza underwent heavy alterations in 1779 that substantially gave the current shape to the square and the buildings that surround it. After the Unification of Italy and until 1944 the Palazzo del Sedile housed the seat of the Municipality. Later the palace was destined to a secondary seat of the Conservatory of Bari, then destined to become the Duni Conservatory of Matera.