There are more than a hundred and fifty churches cut into the rock in and around Matera, and the word for them is rupestrian, meaning simply of the rock.
They are not churches built of stone. They are churches removed from it. Somebody stood at a rock face with hand tools and took away everything that was not a nave, so the columns, the arches, the domes and the apses are not assembled pieces but the parts that were left behind. Some are plain chambers. Some are painted. A few are extraordinary.
This guide covers what they are, which ones to see, and the one outside town that needs booking weeks ahead. The wider planning is in my complete guide to Matera.
Cut, not built
Stand inside one and look at the ceiling.
In a built church a dome is an engineering solution: a way of holding weight up. Here a dome holds nothing up, because there is solid rock above it. It is carved because that is what a church was supposed to look like, which means every one of these is a copy in stone of a building type that the carvers knew from elsewhere, made by subtraction rather than construction.
You can still see the tool marks. Parallel, close together, working across a surface in a direction somebody chose nine hundred years ago.
The soft local limestone is what made all this possible. It cuts almost like hard wood when freshly quarried and hardens on exposure to air, which is also why the town itself exists in the form it does.
The painted crypt outside town
The one that justifies the trip is on the plateau outside the town and it is usually called the Sistine Chapel of rupestrian art, which oversells the scale and undersells the strangeness.
Three shallow arched recesses, cut into soft rock, painted with saints and biblical scenes in ochre, red and white. The frescoes are dated to the eighth or ninth century, Benedictine work from the Lombard period, and they were made for a monastic community living out here in caves, not for a congregation.
Two practical points, and the second one catches a lot of people out.
It is booked online in advance, at ten euros, and there are no walk-ins at all. Arrange it before you arrive rather than on the day.
And the meeting point is not the crypt. You gather at a farm ticket office on Contrada Pietrapenta thirty minutes before your slot, and go in from there. It sits seven kilometres south of town, about twenty minutes by car and then a short dirt road, so you need a car or a taxi, or one of the tours that includes the transfer.
The visit itself lasts twenty minutes. Allow an hour door to door and do not stack anything tight behind it. The setting is bare, hot and completely silent, which is part of the effect.
The ones in town, and the ticket that makes them cheap
Inside Matera itself the rock churches are quick and unevenly interesting, and three of them are run together by the same cooperative on one combined ticket. That is the thing to know, because buying them separately is a false economy.
The three are Santa Lucia alle Malve, Santa Maria de Idris with San Giovanni in Monterrone (one complex, entered as a single visit), and San Pietro Barisano.
One church runs about four euros. Two comes to around seven. All three is about eight, which is the obvious choice given the first one costs half of it. Tickets are bought on the spot rather than online. Opening is generally half past nine to half past seven, with San Pietro Barisano starting at ten.
If you are also going to the painted crypt, all three of these still only adds an hour to a morning, and they are genuinely different from one another.
Santa Lucia alle Malve was a Benedictine convent church and holds the oldest surviving frescoes of the three, some of them layered where later painters worked straight over earlier work.
Santa Maria de Idris is cut into the great rock spur that stands up out of Sasso Caveoso, and the tunnel connecting it through to San Giovanni in Monterrone is the part people remember.
San Pietro Barisano is the largest, and the strangest, because it is mostly bare. Its walls were stripped of frescoes by thieves in the twentieth century, and below the church there is a drainage chamber where bodies were once seated to decompose. It is the one that stops feeling like a church.
A couple of them have Byzantine-influenced painting, which is a reminder of how much of southern Italy looked east rather than north for a long stretch of its history.
One of these, San Nicola dei Greci, is where the Last Supper was filmed for The Passion of the Christ. The lanes of Sasso Caveoso just outside took the procession of the cross.
The ones across the ravine
The Murgia plateau opposite the town, and the walls of the gorge itself, hold more of them, including some of the oldest.
Several can be visited on the walk to the belvedere, and many more are simply visible as dark openings in the far cliff face. It is worth knowing what you are looking at: the Sassi are the surviving, prosperous corner of a landscape that was once full of cave settlement, and the churches over there are what is left of the rest of it.
The route is covered in the Belvedere and the Murgia park.
Practical notes
Cover your shoulders and knees. Some are working religious sites and the rule is enforced at a few of them.
Take a light layer. They hold a constant cool temperature, which is welcome in August and noticeable in February.
Photography is often restricted, particularly where there are frescoes, since flash damages pigment. Ask rather than assume.
And they are dim by design. Give your eyes two or three minutes before deciding a church is not worth the two euros. Most of what is on the walls only appears once you have stopped squinting.
Read also: the best things to do in Matera, the Sassi of Matera, and my complete guide to Matera.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are rupestrian churches?
Churches cut directly into rock rather than built from it. The naves, columns, arches and domes are carved out of the living stone, so they are shaped by removal rather than construction. There are more than a hundred and fifty in and around Matera.
How much do the rock churches in Matera cost?
About four euros for one, around seven for two and about eight for all three on the combined ticket covering Santa Lucia alle Malve, Santa Maria de Idris with San Giovanni in Monterrone, and San Pietro Barisano. Since one church costs half the price of all three, the combined ticket is the sensible buy. The painted crypt outside town is separate, at ten euros.
Do you need to book the Crypt of the Original Sin?
Yes. It is visited by appointment only with no walk-ins, so arrange it before you arrive rather than on the day. It also sits outside town on the plateau, so you will need a car or a taxi to reach it.
How old are the frescoes in Matera’s rock churches?
The paintings in the best known crypt outside town are dated to the eighth or ninth century. Others in and around the Sassi range across several centuries, with some showing clear Byzantine influence, a reminder of southern Italy’s long orientation toward the east.
Can you take photographs inside the rupestrian churches?
Often not, particularly where frescoes survive, since flash damages pigment. Rules vary by site, so ask at the entrance. Several are also working religious buildings where shoulders and knees should be covered.
