Civita (Matera) Travel Guide - Free

Civita’s position reflects the long history of settlement at Matera, where natural caves, ravine edges and workable limestone provided shelter and building material. The wider Matera area was inhabited in prehistoric times, but the Civita ridge became particularly important as an elevated position above the inhabited cave districts. Its defensible terrain and connection with the surrounding plateau helped establish a concentrated urban centre, while homes and religious sites developed down the slopes towards what are now Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso.

During the medieval period, Civita emerged as Matera’s ecclesiastical and civic core. Matera Cathedral was built on the ridge in the thirteenth century, traditionally dated between 1230 and 1270, replacing an earlier church and asserting the importance of the settlement’s highest ground. Noble residences, urban streets and religious institutions gathered around it, while the lower cave districts continued to support homes, workshops and churches. The contrast between the cathedral quarter above and the rock-cut neighbourhoods below remains fundamental to Matera’s historic character.

For centuries, Civita functioned as the built centre of a settlement whose social and economic life extended through the Sassi. Stone houses, palazzi, cisterns and churches shared an environment shaped by scarce water, steep ground and intense proximity. The ridge was not separate from the cave districts but connected to them by lanes, stairways and working relationships. Religious buildings and prosperous residences stood close to more modest dwellings, creating the layered social landscape that distinguishes Matera from a conventional hill town.

In the twentieth century, poor housing conditions and public-health concerns led to the relocation of many Sassi residents to new neighbourhoods during the 1950s and 1960s. Civita, as the historic high point, was affected by the decline of traditional residential life even though its cathedral and urban fabric remained prominent. From the late twentieth century onwards, restoration, heritage protection and cultural tourism brought renewed investment to the old centre. The result is a neighbourhood where churches, houses and public routes have been repaired alongside hotels, museums, restaurants and continuing local life.