The story
Welcome to Via San Pietro Barisano. As you stand here in the heart of the Sasso Barisano district, take a moment to look at the stone beneath your feet and the walls rising around you. You are surrounded by calcarenite, a soft, honey-colored volcanic rock that has defined life in Matera for millennia.
This street, which feels more like a winding terrace than a road, takes its name from the monumental church just a few steps away, a place where the line between the world of the living and the world of the dead once blurred in a very literal way. Look toward the Church of San Pietro Barisano. It is the largest rupestrian, or rock-hewn, church in the city.
While the facade you see today was built in the 18th century, it is merely a mask. Behind that stone front, the entire sanctuary is carved directly into the cliffside. It originated in the 12th and 13th centuries, and inside, its nave and aisles are shaped by the very belly of the mountain.
But the true secrets of this place lie beneath the floorboards. If you were to descend into the church’s subterranean crypt, you would find a series of haunting stone chambers known as a putridarium. Here, you can still see the drainage niches, or scolatoi.
In centuries past, when the priests of this parish died, they were not immediately buried. Instead, their bodies were placed upright in these stone niches, seated on chairs with holes in the center. This allowed the earthly fluids to drain away, desiccating the body until only the skeleton remained.
It was a macabre but deeply symbolic ritual of purification, a way for the clergy to transition from the flesh of this world to the spirit of the next. To the people of Matera, death was not hidden away; it was a neighbor, integrated into the very foundations of their place of worship. As you continue walking along this street, notice how the houses and hotels are stacked on top of one another.
In Matera, the roof of one man’s home is often the walkway for the neighbor above. This was a city of necessity and ingenious architecture. For decades, these caves were symbols of extreme poverty, eventually leading to the evacuation of the Sassi in the 1950s.
But look at them now. The street is alive again. The very caves that once housed large families and livestock have been transformed into elegant spaces, where the cool, damp silence of the rock provides a sanctuary from the Mediterranean sun.
Pause for a second and listen. You might hear the distant chime of a bell or the soft scrape of shoes on stone. In this place, the history isn't just in the museums; it is in the air, the light, and the silent, empty niches of the church that gives this street its name.
Take your time as you wander, and remember that every doorway you pass likely leads into a story carved deep into the earth.