The church of Santa Maria di Idris, also called “Santa Maria de Idris” or “Madonna de Idris”, is located in Matera, in the Sassi. It is a cave church, that is carved into the rock. It is located in the upper part of the Monterrone, a huge limestone cliff that rises in the middle of the Caveoso; It will get you through a flight of stairs near the cave church of Saint Lucia alle Malve. Idris The name derives from the greek Hodegetria, she who shows the way, or the water that gushed from the rock.

The Cathedral of Madonna della Bruna and Sant’Eustachio is the main place of Catholic worship in Matera, the mother church of the Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina. The cathedral was built in Romanesque style in the XIII century on the highest spur of Civita that divides the two Sassi. On the area of the former Benedictine monastery of Saint Eustace, the patron of the city, where already between 1093 and 1094 had stayed on Pope Urban II, the cathedral was built starting in 1230, some years after Pope Innocent III had elevated the city of Matera to the rank of archdiocese in conjunction with Acerenza; to ensure that the new temple dominated with its mass surrounding buildings and the two valleys below the Sassi, it was necessary to raise the rocky base of more than six meters.

The rock churches of Matera territory, mainly based in the Middle Ages, buildings are carved into the rock. Initially born as religious structures, over time they have undergone several transformations of use, becoming homes or shelters for animals. They are an important record of the presence of community of Benedictine monks, Lombards and Byzantines. Some churches also, despite the substantial Latin setting, have Byzantine elements, or vice versa, architecturally Greek churches have liturgical spaces of the Latin type. The rock churches often contain frescoes and sculptural elements, which, in addition to the decorative function, induced to contemplation and prayer.

Purgatory Church, built in 1747 in late Baroque style, has a facade with decorations on the theme of death and redemption of souls. Remarkable wooden portal divided into 36 panels showing the upper skulls of prelates and rulers and down those of ordinary citizens. Inside, a Greek cross, there is an octagonal dome.

Palazzo Lanfranchi is the greatest monument is the seventeenth-century period in Matera. At the door stands the sculpture “The Drop” by Kengiro Azuma. The work was designed and built, between 1668 and 1672, by Friar Francesco da Copertino at the request of Archbishop Vincenzo Lanfranchi, with the aim of hosting the Diocesan Seminary. The construction of the facility also incorporated the “Convento del Carmine”, existing. In 1864, after the unification of Italy, the Palazzo Lanfranchi hosted until 1967 the Liceo Classico “E. Duni”, where he also taught Pascoli 1882-1884.

The National Museum Ridola, set Feb. 9, 1911, originated thanks to the donation to the State of the collection of archaeological finds collected by Senator Ridola during his research. The first core of the museum was placed in seventeenth-century former convent of the Poor Clares and contained materials from the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age, and exposed wooden windows.

The Sassi of Matera are the historic city of Matera. Sasso “Caveoso” and Sasso “Barisano”, along with the district “Civita”, form a complex urban center. The Sassi of Matera were entered in the list of World Heritage by UNESCO in 1993. They were the first site in southern Italy. The inscription was motivated by the fact that they represent a unique urban ecosystem capable of perpetuating the farthest prehistoric past ways of living in caves up to modernity. The Sassi of Matera are an exceptional example of the careful use of resources in time of nature: water, soil, energy.