The scene of the Fall
Adam, Eve and the tree in 9th-century fresco.
Pietro & Silvia — CC BY 2.0 · Pietro & Silvia — CC BY 2.0
**A cave cut into a cliff whose walls are covered in 9th-century frescoes, called "the Sistine Chapel of rock churches"** — about 14 km from Matera. ⚠ **It is not a built church**: **a natural cave in a cliff** used by Benedictine monks **in the 8th or 9th century**. ✅ **Its frescoes are exceptional for their age**: **scenes from Genesis** — **the Creation, Adam and Eve, and the first sin** — ⚠ **painted in a free, flowing manner unusual** for the period, **in red, yellow and white**, **with elongated, expressive figures**. ⚠ **They are ascribed to an unknown artist called the "Painter of the Flowers"** for the red blooms he set between the scenes. ⚠ **Visits are by compulsory advance booking and guided tour only.**
Adam, Eve and the tree in 9th-century fresco.
Blooms dividing the scenes that gave the painter his name.
Sequenced lighting revealing the scenes one by one.
Contrada Pietrapenta, 75100 Matera, Italy
**More than 150 churches cut into the rock around the city and the ravine — and most are unknown to visitors.** ✅ **What they are**: **churches, chapels and monasteries carved entirely out of the limestone** — **not built**; **cut roughly between the 8th and 13th centuries**, **and many decorated with frescoes**, Byzantine and Latin. ✅ **Why here**: **the limestone (tufa) of this region is soft, easily cut, and hardens on exposure to air** — ⚠ **so digging is cheaper and faster than building**, which is the principle of all Matera. ✅ **Their monastic origin**: **monks came from the East** — Byzantines fleeing the iconoclast persecutions, then Benedictines — **and settled the caves** in these ravines for solitude, **carving their churches**. ✅ **Where to see them**: **inside the Sassi itself** — **Santa Maria de Idris**, **San Pietro Barisano** and **Santa Lucia alle Malve** (⚠ with entry fees), ✅ **and in the natural park across the ravine (the Murgia)** — **dozens of them in the open**, **some accessible and free and some closed**. ⚠ **Their condition varies enormously**: **many frescoes are ruined** by damp and by use as animal shelters after the clearance. ✅ **The Crypt of the Original Sin is by far the best preserved.**
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