"Matera is like a giant beehive–solid looking on the outside, but actually made up almost entirely of tunnels, passageways, chambers and chambers atop chambers [...] still very much alive, gaunt and barren, and strangely beautiful, had stood for millennia and may stand for millennia to come."
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Sources
Michael Cunningham, Michael Cunningham's Hours in Matera, by I-Italy magazine.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Matera
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Matera
Matera is an Italian city in the Basilicata region. Known for its ancient cave-dwellings called Sassi (Stones), it was probably founded by the Romans in the 3rd century BC. During the Aragonese domain, the population rebelled against the crown and killed the count Giovanni Carlo Tramontano. From 1663 to 1806, it was the capital of Basilicata, until Joseph Bonaparte reassigned it to Potenza. In 1943, Matera was the first Italian city to react against the Nazi-fascism domination.
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