Musée Crypt of the Original Sin

A few kilometers from Matera, along the Appia Antica, in Pietrapenta, there is the oldest and most suggestive testimony of the rock art of Southern Italy: the Crypt of the Original Sin, a cave used as a church around the seventh century AD. by the Benedictine monks, completely frescoed by the skilful hand of the "Painter of the Flowers of Matera". Rediscovered in May 1963 by a group of young fans of Matera, from shelter for flocks The Crypt of the Original Sin has become one of the unmissable stops in the visit to the City of Stones. Defined the "Sistine Chapel" of rock wall painting for the cycle of frescoes depicting the theme of Creation and Original Sin, the Crypt "offers" in an innovative way to the visitor through an audio path supported by a "wise and discreet" intervention of light design that in revealing the artistic relevance of his illustrations tells the story, in a mix of emotions, spirituality and culture.

The area of ​​the Matera, we know, is rich in caves and various bumps caused by the particular shape of the ground. Well thanks to this characteristic, around the VII century AD, the territory of the Gravine area of ​​Picciano and Matera was affected by a great flow of monks coming from the Orient, in particular from the Holy Land, due to the iconoclasm spreading oil throughout the Mediterranean. Immediately after the sixties in this area the visitors were revealed, in all its splendor, one of the most evocative places in the south. It is a karstic cavity not far from Matera known as Cripta del Peccato Originale or Grotta dei Cento Santi due to the presence of numerous saints depicted. The crypt, overlooking a large rock with steep walls, is a testimony of rock art of inestimable value, as it plays an important role from the historical and artistic point of view thanks to the frescoes of Lombard-Benedictine style present within it.