A street corner in the ancient Sassi di Matera as it looks today.

Matera is a town and a province in the region of Basilicata, sometimes referred to as Lucania, in the south of Italy.

Apart from an economy which has traditionally been based on agriculture, in the late 1990s the major economic base of Matera, and of surrounding cities, is the production of drawing-room furniture.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the town had a population of 57,785 (2001 census).

The province of Matera covers an area of 3,447 sq. km, with a 2001 population of 204,239.

Matera had gained international fame for its ancient town, the so-called "Sassi di Matera" (meaning "stones of Matera") which is a prehistorical (troglodyte) settlement, and is suspected to be one of the first human settlements in Italy. This ancient town lays over a small canyon, which has been dug in the course of years by a small water stream, called "Gravina".

This town has many peculiar and unique characteristics:

• The "Sassi" are houses dug into the tuff rock that characterize Puglia and Basilicata. Many of these "houses" are really only caverns.

• During the 1950s, the government relocated most of the population of the Sassi to the modern city of Matera. People still live in the Sassi today, however. Until the late 1980s this was considered an area of poverty, since these houses are mostly unlivable. Current local administration, becoming more tourism-oriented, has promoted the gentrification of the "Sassi" and the tuff houses are becoming more livable and attractive.

• There is a great similarity in the look of the Sassi with that of ancient sites in and aound Jerusalem, which are as ancient.

Because of the ancient and primitive scenery in and around the Sassi, it has been used by film makers as the setting for ancient Jerusalem. The following famous biblical period movies were filmed in Matera:

• Pier Paolo Pasolini’s "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" (1964).
• Bruce Beresford’s "King David" (1985).
• Mel Gibson’s "The Passion of the Christ" (2004).

A memorable chapter on Matera, describing the really poor life of people in the south of Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century, is in the book "Cristo si è fermato a Eboli" (Christ stopped at Eboli) by Carlo Levi.