Sasso Caveoso
The rawer quarter, its caves cut into the cliff.
Bönisch — CC BY-SA 2.0 de · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0
**An entire town carved into a rock face, inhabited for thousands of years — and forcibly emptied in the 1950s as "the shame of Italy"** — a World Heritage site. ⚠ **The Sassi is not one quarter but two**: **Sasso Caveoso** and **Sasso Barisano**, **descending into a rock ravine** — **houses cut into the stone stacked on one another**, **one house's roof the next house's yard**. ⚠ **Habitation here has been continuous since the Stone Age** — **and it counts among the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world**. ⚠ **In 1952 the government legislated the forced clearance of the Sassi**: **after it emerged that families were living with their animals in caves without water or drainage**, **and child mortality was enormous**. **Some 15,000 people were moved to new districts**, ⚠ **and the old town stood empty for decades**. ✅ **Then it was revived** — and became a European Capital of Culture in 2019.
The rawer quarter, its caves cut into the cliff.
The whole town lit, across the ravine from the belvedere.
One house's roof is the next house's yard.
Sasso Caveoso, 75100 Matera, Italy
**A national scandal that ended in an entire town being deported — then in regret and recovery half a century later.** ✅ **The situation**: by the mid-20th century the Sassi held **some 15,000 people** living in **cut caves with no electricity, running water or drainage**, ⚠ **many sharing their dwelling with their animals** — the mule and the chickens in the same room. ⚠ **The health consequences were catastrophic**: **malaria and typhoid were widespread**, **and infant mortality reached enormous levels**. ✅ **What brought it to a head**: **Carlo Levi's book *Christ Stopped at Eboli*** (1945), which described the poverty of the south, ⚠ **and then a visit by prime minister De Gasperi**, who was appalled; **and Matera was called «the shame of Italy» in parliament**. ✅ **The decision**: **a law of 1952 ordered forcible clearance** and the building of modern districts outside the ravine. ⚠ **The execution was harsh**: **people were moved by compulsion**, **the houses were sealed**, ⚠ **and neighbourhood networks generations old were broken**; **many of the old never adjusted**. ✅ **The reversal**: **in the 1980s the Sassi's value began to be recognised**, **it was inscribed as World Heritage in 1993**, **and gradually reinhabited** — ✅ **becoming a European Capital of Culture in 2019**.
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