Mathera (2019) - full transcript

Every now and then
we happen upon an instant in time,

that takes us back to the origin of things,

and crystallizes them
so they might be handed down for posterity.

Dust, rock, matter.

Lasting fragments of reality,
reminding us whence we came.

Looking at Matera,
they are very much alive and kicking.

It's one of the oldest cities in the world,
along with Aleppo and Jericho.

Its architecture has resisted the whips
and scorns of time and men for millennia.

Its history begins way back.

When anyone asks me
how old the Sassi cave dwellings are,

I always say they are ageless.



True, the first signs of life among the Sassi
go back to Palaeolithic times,

so they are bound up with the world,
life, the life of Humankind,

but I have to admit I like to think
of these places as being outside of time

in the Palaeolithic period,
the first hunters and nomadic tribes,

hid themselves awa
deep inside Matera 's natural grottoes.

The Neolithic Age
heralded a period of expansion

as people moved beyond Gravina, or the
ravine, and established permanent settlements.

Tombs and traces of dwellings are still being
discovered the in Murgia Materana National Park.

Matera stretches out
along a plain in the uplands,

and then the ancient town developed
lower down, towards the canyon.

In the Metal Ages tools
for digging out rock improved,

and in the canyon we find a kind
of wall ready to be chiselled away at.

Metal tools made this task much easier,

and grottoes, or caves,
started to be carved out in Matera.



These were no longer the natural grottoes
of the Palaeolithic period, but artificial caves.

Why dig the rock ?
Why did they dig out the rock ?

For climatic reasons we believe.

Humankind always seeks
the best places to live in,

and ever since prehistoric times
the grottoes had provided shelter.

Climate must have been among
the prime concerns then,

but for prehistoric man they were
more than just places to inhabit.

They were used as the first temples,

places for art, symbolism,
prayer ancl spirituality.

They're full of paintings,
extraordinary works of art.

Picasso said that post-prehistoric art
was only decadence.

The community grew stronger.

And the landscape
was digged, pierced, chiselled.

Like Petra in Jordan,
Mada'in Salih in Arabia, or Hajar in Yemen.

All the members
of that persevering and resilient people

were devoted to agricoiture, bred livestock,
and gave birth to Arts and Religion.

Matera and the surrounding area

became a crossroads
of diverse life and cultures.

Still today echoes of Magna Graecia
echo throughout the Metapontino

Plato came to Taranto to seek
out the books on the nature of things

that Pythagoras's disciples
had left behind in the inland caves, Gravina,

and, probably, Matera itself.

When I'm asked if there is a guide to the Sassi,

I tell people to go and touch the walls

and listen to them telling the story.

Matera is one
of the oldest living cities in the world.

It has continued to survive 8000 years

because it has always managed
to renew itself historically.

It's a geographical area
that has become history.

An existential geology.
Out of time, and above time.

In July 1950 Alcide De Gasperi visited and
described the city as "a national disgrace".

We were a symbol of the wretched people of the
Mezzogiorno that the government had to support.

Ancl they supported us
by emptying out this "disgrace".

The city died, abandoned unto itself.

It turned into a slum.

Some people at the time wanted to destroy
the Sassi by drowning the area in cement,

burying the shame and infamy.

Others, more cynical and refined, wanted the
area to represent the history of all this distress

letting it become
the Pompei of peasant civilization.

While Italy began its process of recover
after the Second World War,

the Sassi in Matera became
a muddle of overcrowded houses

where animals and humans
lived side by side.

That was when Carlo Levi with the publication
of his novel Christ Stopped at Eboli

had the State stand up and listen.

Matera dominated the headlines

as the most glaring example
of southern Italian backwardness.

In all that blinding sunshine, to me it felt as
if I'd been flung into a city ridden with plague.

Doors were left ajar because of the heat.

Passing by I looked at the cave interiors,

which only received
light or air through those doors.

Some caves didn't even have doors.

The women who saw me peeping
through the doorways invited me in.

They were skinny, milking dirty, undernourished
babies who sucked on breasts without nipples.

They nodded to me kindly and despondent.

We began this awareness campaign,

or, as I call it, a "socialization
of cultural assets campaign",

when we set up an association
to answer the question:

"Who are the inhabitants of Matera ? Are we
poverty's children ? Or the children of History ?"

We wanted our worth and identity
to be appreciated anew

because we were convinced from the
beginning that Matera's renowned vitality

had to be channelled
into the city and its development.

The most famous episode,
the most emotional,

epidermal,

was the discovery
of the Cave of the Hundred Saints,

which we later baptized
the Cave, or Crypt, of Original Sin.

On 1st May 1963 the weather was amazing.
The sun was shining in the afternoon.

I said: "Friends,
let's start exploring again".

"No, no, we're tired, discouraged, this cave
doesn't exist, it's a figment of your imagination."

"I'm going, whoever
wants to come with me is welcome."

A few faithful followers tagged along, my sister,
my fiancé, now my wife, and one of my friends.

We came to the edge of Gravina, or the ravine,
where we'd left a sign, a small red circle,

and we started walking along
the crest 0f the canyon.

Suddenly it opened out into a kind of loop.

We were on the left

and the caves were marked off, clotted
with steps and stairways hewn from the rock,

Leaving the girls behind us
we ran like goats along these cliff edges.

And then we got to an immense,
empty cave.

The second cave was filled with agricultural objects
like wheelbarrows, ladders, hoes and ropes.

The third was a sheep pen,

cordoned off by a series of branches
one-and-a-half metres high,

with a tiny door at the centre
to count the sheep as they entered and left.

We entered the dark cave, which had got even
darker because of the protective fence of branches.

Our eyes still hadn't got used to
the clim light, we couldn't see much,

but we understood that there was
something unusual about those rock walls.

As soon as our eyes got used to the darkness,
out popped the 100 saints.

Early medieval Lombard Benedictine images,

41 square metres of frescoes
carried out 500 years before Giotto.

It was totally overwhelming.

When the girls arrived they found us lying
on the ground, arms wrapped around each other,

because we'd discovered
the Cave of the Hundred Saints.

While we were in this unimaginable state
of almost unspeakable emotion,

the rightful owners
of the cave arrived on the scene:

71 sheep started lying down
beneath these amazing frescoes.

The custodians of the cave.

Running through the city's ancient history
is a certain monastic fervour.

Monks arriving from the
south, the east and the sea

sought to establish an outpost of faith
in the isolation of Matera.

In the Gravina, onto its uplands,
in prehistoric sites and new areas,

were built retreats, cenacles,
parishes and male and female monasteries,

and it was among these that the very soul
of Matera and its inhabitants developed.

And the city of Matera developed
around these religious nuclei,

which are all bound up
with the local fervour.

A sense of solidarity
came to inform life itself in Matera.

Families in the neighbourhood lived around
the well, the communal farmyard and the cistern.

All life took place here,

it was the place where conflicts
were sparked off and forgotten,

the place where guests were welcomed.

Living in this way, in the midst
of a potentially threatening ambient,

and overcoming hardship, helps people
live side by side and work together.

No-one was left behind in the neighbourhood.

Mutual help was a given, a continuation of
the most profound Christian values.

This value system manifested itself in the
smallest of things, like the making of bread,

for example, which was prepared
with the ritual 0f the three cuts,

representing the Holy Trinity,

and its almost Eucharistic distribution
which took place house by house,

also nourishing
those who were without money.

Every now ancl then I pause to reflect
on the extraordinary form our bread has taken.

The idea that our grandparents
did this is just so touching:

they blessed in the name of the Father, the Son
and the Holy Ghost every single piece of bread.

That gives you some idea of what bread
actually meant to our grandparents.

It was life itself to them,
the most important thing of all.

Then there was the stamp.

They stamped each and every loaf of bread
so it could be recognized on the way out.

So how did they prepare the larger pieces...

Good question, the larger ones.
There were loaves weighing in at 5-6 kilos..

Mre difficult to stick in the oven for sure.

There used to be a queue at the bakery.

People knew exactly
when the bread was ready:

they waited for their turn,
took the bread and carried it home

Six, seven years ago there was a queue...

Our grandparents picked up the bread

and then walked for miles with it.

That's a nice memory !

They had to transport the bread
from here to the house owners.

The stamp allowed them to recognize whose bread it
was, and they carried it to the customers' houses.

- Good morning ! - Ah ! Your Excellency !
Good morning. - How are you ? - Fine, thanks.

One of the things I always tell the tourists
is that the bread of Matera is something special,

because if you cut it in half,
the heart always appears.

Ancl that's what we mean
when we say Matera has a big heart.

There's always been a sense
of neighbourliness here in Matera:

neighbours used to gather together and when
they made the bread at home they shared it round.

If someone didn't have any bread he could
be sure his neighbour would give him some.

He leant it to him, and maybe he'd never
get it back, but everything worked like that.

When bread is broken up,
when it's given to others,

it's a sign of this communion
which takes us back to the Eucharist.

There's always been this strong sense
of community among the people here in Matera.

- Come on ! Wrap up the bread for me !
- I'm going to cut it.

Cut it...

- Thank you and good clay.
- Thank you. - Bye bye.

- Bye, good clay !
' BYE bye.

People, animals, horses and chickens
lived in the Sassi.

- Inside a house ! They all lived together.
- Horses, sheeps...

These were the animals
that most houses contained.

Not all houses of course,
but plenty of people had them.

Every peasant family had all these things.

Ninety per cent of the people
living here were peasants.

People used to get up before dawn
to go and work in the country,

and they'd get back in the evening.

People would stay out till night,
and then come back home.

I regret the loss of neighbourliness,
people used to stick together.

When someone fell ill
the others went to visit.

They'd say the rosary together.

That was a source of comfort.

Food was brought along,
perhaps not everyone all the time...

We helped each others.

Plates were often brought along too.

Getting the water, washing something...

Don't worry !
The neighbours will take care of it !

The doors used to remain open and you just
strolled in and started chatting with everyone.

All the kids playing
in the neighbourhood there, that was us.

- S0-and-so's son, and the daughter of so-and-so.
- We all knew.

- We all knew.
- One good turn deserved another.

With the passing of time, years, decades,

the families effectively became one family.

There was this grandmother,
a couple of them there were,

and they looked after everyone's children.

S0 there was
this really pronounced group spirit,

because everyone lived side by side.

If a child caught a cold,

everyone would be concerned

because the child was one of their own

and also because
they didn't want the cold spreading.

But things were mostly positive.

If Signora Maria had run out of something,

she didn't have to go outside and buy it,

she'd just pop along to Signora Giovanna or Sisina
and say: "Sorry, I need this".

At which point they'd offer her
whatever she needed with immense pleasure.

It was really...
The neighbourhood was one big family.

Sometimes a blended family, because even in
those days, friendships and love affairs developed

and perhaps
not in the most orderly of fashions,

so yes, blended families.

Here we are at last
in the breakfast room of Saint Peter's court.

Six children lived here
plus parents and animals,

animals, perfectly normal for Matera.

Over there was the donkey and the pig,
and on the other side was the sheep.

That's what Signora Sisina told us.

She was here
when we inaugurated the facilities,

and she told us her story.

She was the youngest,

ancl she had to carry out certain tasks
that were usually assigned to the youngest.

I wasn't born in the Sassi,
I was born in the new city,

where my parents
had achieved social redemption,

they built their new house.

When I went to Florence,
at the university of architecture

my world,

my microcosm as a kid from the south
who goes to study in Florence,

the birthplace of restoration,
renovation and culture,

it all became a cause for pride when I heard
the name "Matera" mentioned, the city.

I heard it mentioned in the most familiar contexts:
Carlo Levi, "Christ who stopped at Eboli",

Pasolini who makes a film, "La lupa"...

As a student of architecture
I realized I could,

today I can't help but smile
as this was actually what happened,

do architecture while considering Matera,
ancl doing my exams on Matera.

These were the years people started
talking about restoring the Sassi,

it was a subject much talked about,

and the first results
were starting to come through.

But nothing prepared us
for what was about to happen.

Matera was declared a World Heritage site,
it was now part of the world's patrimony.

At the time it was by no means a foregone
conclusion to get this kind of recognition,

a UNESCO World Heritage site.

As a kid from the south this meant liberation.
I was liberated.

Life can't have been very easy
in the Sassi after the war.

The area was overpopulated,
the houses were crowded

and, most importantly,
the drainage system had collapsed,

and there was an obvious health risk.

But how many cities, in Italy as well,
had had to face up to crises of this kind ?

Even pre-Renaissance
Rome had been devastated.

It had been abandoned
and needed to be completely rebuilt.

The Colosseum had become a hill, and many famous
Roman sites had been left to their own devices.

Matera experienced something similar.

All of this led to greater decadence, of course.

A city cannot be left in a state of abandonment.

Even a house falls apart
if the windows aren't opened every clay,

ancl if the gutters, chimney, doors...
aren't maintained properly,

it quickly falls into decay and crumbles.

Ancl this is what happened
to the Sassi in the sixties and seventies.

In the same period, greater attention started
being paid to the issue of restoration in Italy.

Ancl a special law was passed for Matera.

The Sassi was an area that could not be abandoned
unto itself: it would be protected and restored.

What happens to the soul
when the body is transformed ?

Does it dissolve, or does it linger on
unmoved, until it takes 0n a different form ?

Restoration meant the soul of Matera
would return to its original home:

Former neighbourliness
turned into awareness of the common good,

which is really key
to the renaissance of Matera.

A necessary transformation, global and electrifying,
which takes its origin from the wisdom of the past.

Places once steeped in poverty
have returned to life in the Sassi

and are providing
new cultural opportunities.

Modern and contemporary art museums

have been set up and the silence of the land
mixes with new musical sounds in auditoriums.

I've heard people refer to Matera
as a gigantic sculpture in stone.

That's a surprising definition.

Sculpture evokes mass volume

while for centuries Matera
was the city that was dug out of Gravina,

a huge emptiness
that is precisely the opposite of sculpture.

S0 delicate is the nature of the restoration
required by Matera that it must be global.

We are talking about
the restoration of a live body,

where material and immaterial can only be
distinguished and separated with great difficulty.

And if that is true,
we are well advised not to make distinctions.

The restoration allows the public,
or society,

to recognize its duty towards conservation.

It's almost as if the restoration process
transformed every visitor into a conservationist,

someone who is careful not to waste or ruin.

Restoration is certainly
a highly professional science.

But from a moral point of view,
it is deeply contagious, that is, educational.

There was a need for a global,
international vision if this city,

that is timeless, whose time is indefinite,

a city whose beginning cannot be dated,

was going to survive.

Ancl who would be the master architects
able to show me how to restore the Sassi ?

The stonemasons, the old stonemasons
and, on saying that,

I can see again their faces burnt by the sun,

hear their great stories
and experiences and their expert ways.

Ancl if you, as a young architect,
had to give them instructions,

and you had to because u was part of your 'yob
and they expected your 'mstructmns,

if you said something not quite right,
the moment you turned your back they'd say:

..."Cuss' nun capisc' nudda".
"He doesn't understand anything".

And that's the worst thing
that can happen to a young architect.

I don't what they said when my back was turned,

but I do know that a few of these old timers
I considered them my teachers.

When we started off
with the restoration work here

when we worked the tufa limestone
in that way,

the architect said "No ! What are you doing ?
You should have left them as they were".

I replicated:
"Are you kidding me ? It's nice as it is !".

"No, I want them as they are !"

I did not agree.

Five or six years after,
I met the architect again.

"Mr Architect !"
"Hi, Pasquale, how are you ?"

Mr Architect, I said to him,
I've got something to tell you.

"G0 ahead, Pasquale", he replied.

"Do you remember when we said
you were crazy to spend all that money ?"

"Oh did you indeed ?"
IIYesll-

"I've had second thoughts, because it's thanks
to you, one of the first to believe in the Sassi,

that the area
has become so important today."

- He did a great job.
- Yes, it's true.

- You know ?
- Sure.

Matera is a huge emptiness.

An astonishing excavation in deepest earth,

where matter is surrounded by hollow spaces.

With stone caves and canals
and underground chambers in the subsoil,

where an invisible underground city lies,

made up of steps,
channel-ways and cisterns large and small,

built to gather up and direct the water to local
houses and then down towards Gravina, or the ravine.

A circular system collecting
and distributing rainwater,

a sustainable system
whose meticulous, regular flow,

has watered the roots
of Matera for millennia

in an effort to maintain its lush profile.

The world stood up and listened following the
re-discovery of Matera 's very own waterland:

growing numbers
of onlookers intent on witnessing.

The city's beautiful architecture first-hand,

ended up being more impressed
by its extraordinary water system.

UNESCO's reading of Matera
helped reveal its ingenious nature.

All the caves feature running water.

Many inhabitants used to find their cisterns filled
with water, without understanding how it got there.

Spring water perhaps, they thought,

but there was a system of canalization
that had continued to function since ancient times.

It was an extraordinary work that betrayed a
genius-like ability to work alongside mother Nature.

Matera had a system for the collection
of water and its distribution as running water

in all the grotto inhabitations,
well before Florence and Paris.

We discovered an underground Matera,

a hypogeum that told the extraordinary story
of life in the grottoes

cavities and underlying spaces.

The hypogea were partly
the places from which tufo was collected,

small caves from which it was possible
to obtain tufo to build new houses,

later they became cellars or deposits,
places where wine

and other things could be stored.

But they are an integral part of the city.

Matera is full of hollow spaces.

It sounds like a contradiction, I know,

but they're the most alluring
ancl fantastic parts of the place.

I'll never forget the clay we discovered
the Palombaro Lungo, this massive cistern.

The workmen called me over:
"Mr Architect ! Come here !".

It was six in the evening. What's up ?
"We've discovered three holes in the square !".

I said: "I understand, nothing unusual.
They'll be the holes of the cistern".

The cisterns have always been
a safeguard for the city,

conserving water as they do.

I got to the square. It wasn't an ordinary cistern.
It was impossible to see the bottom, it was all black.

At that point I got kitted out.

I was slim at the time, very slim.

They tied the ropes to a caterpillar,
and down I went.

I was in midair,

flying above a pool of clear, crystal water.

I looked around me and couldn't see
the beginning or the end of the cistern.

It was the mother-breast of the city.

The mother that conserved water
to give it to the city,

a life-giver.

This was the place
where rainwater was conserved.

We estimated that there could have
been up to 5 million litres of water there,

and that was when we understood
the building intelligence of our ancestors:

they didn't waste anything.

They conserved it all,
right up to the tiniest drop.

The redevelopment of Matera
involves breathing life into a live body,

repairing it, protecting it, conserving it,

but also renewing it
and opening it up to new experiences.

Local neighbourhoods were quickly
re-populated, as indeed its main street,

alleyways and square, arteries and veins
which the locals filled with their projects

the true lifeblood 0f the city.

People chat,
share tales and come together

in a process which perpetuates the sense
of community handed down from time immemorial.

Matera has never given up on life,

always setting itself new targets
to be reached with new plans,

new developmental projects
and new aspirations.

Imagine how my grandparents felt,
they used to live in the Sassi,

and they've never forgotten how
the city was clubbed a "national disgrace",

now there are people coming
from all over the world to visit .

Now a part of the city
has really come back to life.

There are three thounsand people
living in the Sassi.

And we prevented Matera
from becoming a sort of resort for tourists.

If someone had asked me a couple of years ago
if the area would have been completely rehabilitated,

I'd have said no,
that's what I really thought.

There are houses without roofs
which would be very hard to restore.

Then I saw that the scaffolding
was going up there as well.

Now I'm pretty much convinced that sooner
or later the entire place will be rehabilitated.

That's one massive gamble.

Up until now the Capitals of Culture
have always been large cities

requiring substantial development ancl which invested
huge financial ancl economic resources to win.

Marseilles and Liverpool for example.

Matera, on the other hand, is a demonstration
that smaller fry can get a look in.

Places whose past may commonly be perceived
as being one of poverty ancl abandonment,

the poor men of Europe, hidden from view.

Matera shows that these kinds of places have
the greatest potential for progress and growth,

as part of a new renaissance.

So Matera is a message for the entire
Mediterranean, for all the Countries in the world,

for all abandoned towns and villages, that they
can be redeveloped, it is a message for Europe.

The last cannot be left behind ancl Europe is full
of small towns ancl villages that deserve attention.

Matera speaks to inner
Europe, a marginal Europe,

to an inner Europe,
which is a part of us: an inclusive Europe.

When I understood
that the wall of tufa required attention

I say 'wall' because it's not a single quarry,

the quarries go back to the 17th, 18th and 20th
centuries, and some of them are still being formed

where the tufa
was dug out to build our town.

Well, I've always said:
"The quarries are our town's life blood".

That's where the blocks were taken, one by one
with difficulty, each block weighing 25 kilos,

propped up on the shoulder,
carried to the cart and taken to the town

and, when we got motorised,
loaded onto lorries.

Block by block, they were extracted.

For me the quarries are
a salt mine, they taste of salt.

You say: "What do you mean ? Salt ?"
Yes, the salt of the people who did the quarrying.

The quarries finally became a reality.

One of them now houses,

a congress centre,

and there's a sculpture park that hosts
the enormous sculptures of Paradiso,

an artist who, among other things,

is one of the few to have had privileged
access to the Twin Towers demolition wreckage,

from which he created
a wonderful environmental work.

Then there is the Cava del Sole,
or Sun Quarry, which continues to be recognized

as the place for the hosting of large events,
theatre, music, whatever.

An important business card for the city.

Access to Matera
is gained by way of its history.

Its history is not the Sassi, its history is more
a question of where the Sassi were created,

where the matter was created,
where the matter was dug out.

Quarries are normally seen
as being places for dumping,

but for us they are places
whose cultural value can be handed down.

Ancl that, if you like, is another reason
why Matera is so extraordinary.

Relationships hold people together.

he stronger they are, the longer they last.

Traditions bind
and survive across generations,

handed down with spontaneous ease, like the
physical traits a child may inherit from its parents.

Or like a legacy, a promise of
new opportunities for the future.

During the Festa della Bruna these bonds
spread throughout the entire community:

no local can miss it.

The celebration involves the local and those who
come from outside to witness the power of the ritual.

And over the course of a very long day,
it creates a bond between them.

Anyone who loves this city and its values,

anyone
who is ready t0 take part in its tale,

inevitably becomes
a member of this community.

The Festa deiia Bruna
is a possibility of new birth,

ew forms of tourism
and new cultural sharing.

This is a very successful period for Matera.

The town is packed
with visitors and tourists.

Ancl Matera must be able
to say something about this success.

E know tourism
isn't always a force for the good:

Venice and Florence are examples
of how it can also suffocate a city.

I don't agree
with those people who reprimand Matera

for what they accept in Florence ancl Venice.

This tourism is good for Matera
because it provides resources,

it's good for the city
and it's good for culture;

but Matera must be able
to say something new in regard to this.

It is doing so: tourists are treated like temporary
locals, they are invited to come inside our houses.

S0, maybe we can start thinking
of the touristic city not as a city for tourism,

but as something bigger,
like a city with an extended dimension,

where tourism
is actually part of the city itself.

That's the kind of process that Matera
might reflect upon and start working on.

The Festa della Bruna is the moment when the entire
community of Matera comes together and performs.

It would naturally seem
to be a Christian festival.

The "Bruna" refers to the painting
of the Madonna of the Bruna,

hich is kept in the city's cathedral.

For the occasion it is carried
on a horse-drawn float

and at a certain point
the float is attacked and destroyed.

The painting is obviously put to one side in safety
before this climatic destruction of the float.

The Festa della Bruna
is the most important of the city's festivals,

an occasion for the entire city
to be represented.

It's an extraordinary festival,
archaic, primordial,

ancl it's quite difficult to follow
because it's a genuine celebration.

Today it's a deeply rooted Christian celebration,
and religious fervor is a part of that,

but it is also belongs to Matera's
extraordinary ancient past.

One day a young wayfarer appeared
before the gateway to the city.

Exhausted following her pilgrimage,
she asked a peasant for a lift into the city.

The kind gentleman asked her
to climb aboard his cart,

but when they got to the church, the man
was stunned to see her change into a statue:

it was the Virgin Mary.

The man flung himself at her feet, with great
sweetness, she got him to promise her something:

every year the people of Matera would have her
enter the city on a cart decked out for a festival.

Every year the cart became more elaborate in its
decorations and became a tribute to the Madonna,

paid for by the locals.

This is the 53rd float by Pentasuglia.

And we're fourth generation: my grandfather
and great grandfather were both decorators.

He Festival della Bruna
is really important for Matera.

Incredibly iconographic.

We have a saying here in town: you can joke
about anything except the Festa della Bruna.

That's because it's a celebration which,
leaving aside its historical importance,

has developed down the centuries and contains
some rituals which all of us are attached to.

The float is the main icon. It belongs to
everyone, but onkly few of us help in its making.

That's why a balanc
has to be found between tradition,

individual personality
and the fact that it belongs to everyone.

Everyone has something to say about it,
and there's nothing wrong in that.

At the beginning there are a number of problems,
let's say from an emotional point of view.

But the work is extremely important,
and on an everyday basis,

people just get down to it, until it's time
to hand the finished article over to the community.

We know it's going to be torn apart,

but that's something for non-Matera
people to mull over: for us it's a given.

The people of Matera build a float. It's made
out of papier-méche, but it's expensive.

It's made up of the most beautiful images,
angels, sacred statues,

ancl then that's it, the float is destroyed,
it's a moment of uncontrollable frenzy,

You get caught up in the destruction. It's a genuine
celebration. I tell the people who come from outside.

It's not easy to observe or admire
if you're not from Matera,

because the festa has a pace ancl rhythms
that weren't thought out for the public,

they are part of the celebration itself,
for those who feel it.

S0 the float has occasionally been destroyed
when it shouldn't have been,

because so much tension builds
up around the need to destroy it.

Why is it destroyed ?

Perhaps we should think about
the original use of the float, or chariot,

ancl go back to its more archaic roles
in ancient Egypt, or ancient Greece.

We are talking about myths of decomposition,
the destruction of a body,

a sacrifice that was necessary
for the renewal of life.

Pieces of the victim's body
would be placed in fields to ensure fertility,

that's the kind of ritual I mean.

The float of today's Bruna festival

may be religiously Christian in feel,

but it contains echoes of more ancient motifs
that are part of this cycle of natural renewal,

the continual necessity
to destroy in order to recreate.

In order to ensure
the fertility of future crops,

the ear of corn must be deprived of its seeds,
and the seeds must decompose or die

in order to fertilize the land again
and come back to life.

This is the incredible story told through
the festival of the Bruna and its carro, or float.

It's less about destruction
than redistribution

because the people
who are waiting to attack the float

don't want to destroy it.

They want a piece of it because if you manage to take
away part of the float, it'll bring you good luck.

It's destroyed because
it's a kind of metaphor for things,

because it is redistributed

ancl later you can build another one,
even more magnificent,

and the cycle continues, the ritual.

For farming labourers the Madonna
is neither good nor bad.

She burns the crops, destroys the harvest,

but she also
provides nourishment and protection.

She must be prayed to.

In every home,
pinned above the bed with four nails,

the black Madonna of Viggiano witnesses,
with her huge expressionless eyes,

the goings on in life.

The cavalieri, or knights, of the Bruna are
deeply devoted to the Madonna della Bruna,

and take the celebrations to heart.

I've been a knight since 1980.

I feel really emotional
when I get dressed up

because it always feels like
I'm living through the first time again.

So many people have helped breathe new life
into Matera and that's positive.

Of course the value and meaning of the city
have to be respected.

It's unacceptable when the city is exploited
by people who understimate the cave wellings,

the water system, the way of living,
the environment and the city's ancient history.

Matera is proof
that deserted and backward places

places of extreme poverty,
can become places of innovation,

and new cultural production, places
that can be a driving force for human progress.

This is why Matera can be an extraordinary
role model, for the entire Mediterranean,

for Europe as a whole, for the abandoned villages
clotted throughout China, for humanity itself.

By returning to our traditions and what are
considere to be the poverty lands of the last

can instead become the first.

Matera speaks to the Europe inside us all, to those
places on the edge, the communities scattered...

In this sense Matera has immense potential,

showing how it is possible to come back
from the brink to create and produce,

and using culture to ensure progress.

I can't hide the fact that it was
hard at first, but then I settled in...

I learned to know and love Lucania there.

Like all the places round here,
Grassano is white, perched atop an isolated hill,

in the midst of an endless desert,
like a tiny, imaginary Jerusalem.

We'd reached the bottom of the hole,
at Santa Maria de Idris,

which is a beautiful baroque church,

and, staring upwards,

the whole of Matera appeared
before me like a slanted wall.

Many years have passed since then,

full of wars,

and what is commonly called "History".

Up to now,
moving about here, there and everywhere,

it hasn't been possible for me

to honour the promise I
made to my farm labourers when I left them.

I still don't know
if I'll ever be able to honour it.

But locked in a room,
in a world unto itself,

I'm grateful I can go back in time
with my memory to that other world,

a world of pain and tradition,

snubbed by History and the State,

eternally patient,

an inconsolable and disagreeable land,

where the farm labourer
ekes out his static existence

in scarcely acknowledged poverty,

on an arid land,

in the presence of death.

I promised my labourers I would return.

That hasn't been possible up to now.

But I must go back to them one clay.

We want everyone to come and see Matera.
Matera is at once captivating and disconcerting.

Ancl it speaks to our hearts,
our inner selves.

The landscape in Matera
is a different kind of landcsape, it is other,

something that speaks to us deep down.

Energy never remains true to itself,

it renews itself
in a continuous flow 0f time.

Whatever was alive in the past is alive
in the present and shall remain so in the future.

It lives in and around us.

On the surface of things,
on the horizon, in matter and in the immaterial.

Ideas and bequests.

In order to survive we must feed this flow,

leave our mark in the dust, rock and matter.

Lasting fragments of reality that remind
us whence we came, and where we are destined.

Matera, an incision in time
that takes us back to our origins,

crystallising them and transforming them
so they can be handed down to the future.

I enjoy writing aphorisms.
Here's one for Matera.

"Matera: human history at a glance".