The phenomenon of living in caves has constituted an uninterrupted tradition in Puglia, due to the particular geomorphological characteristics of the area, as well as the presence of water and some important communication routes, such as the Appian Way. The local rock, soft and porous, has been excavated and shaped for centuries, and caves and tunnels have been shaped for the needs of daily life, demonstrating man's great ability to adapt to the environment.
In Puglia, many rupestrian settlements are located along the slopes of "lamas" and ravines where, thanks to the easy workability of calcarenite, it has been possible to create an ideal habitat for human life, in balance with nature. Natural caves, frequented since the Paleolithic and then abandoned in the classical age, returned to be populated starting from the early Middle Ages by religious communities of Italian-Greek and Benedictine monks, as well as by groups of farmers and shepherds. Even the succession of barbarian invasions and the Lombard and Arab occupation pushed the inhabitants to prefer the rock settlement, which was difficult to identify among the natural conformation of the rocks. The medieval settlements took the form of real rural agglomerations. It is the exaltation of "building backwards", with different environments on multiple levels, groups of caves connected by an intricate series of streets and ladders dug into the rock, used as homes accompanied by tool sheds, warehouses for foodstuffs, cisterns and pits wheat farms, stables, oil mills, millstones, cellars, ovens, and several churches.
The dwellings of the rupestrian villages were generally very simple and not very comfortable, both due to the poverty of the inhabitants, who were mostly farmers, artisans and monks, and due to the very nature of the dwellings, dug into the tuff with rudimentary means. However, the organization of the inhabited areas reveals great construction skill, an ability to exploit space and an adaptation to the most difficult conditions. The cave houses could be composed of one or more rooms, whose height was between 2.05 and 2.30 metres, sometimes arranged on one or more levels, and have various elements chiselled and modeled directly in the rock, such as seats , niches and shelves for storing vases and everyday objects, wall compartments for storing food, bed corner.
In some homes the walls and ceilings had holes used for bed frames, for fitting wooden surfaces useful for seasoning food, for suspending lanterns and the cradle of newborns. Often the house was also equipped with a cistern for collecting water and shelters for animals. The rectangular entrance was protected by incisions to channel rainwater laterally. The entrances, which often constituted the only source of light and ventilation in the house, also had notches and holes for the insertion of a wooden door.
The heart of the rock village was the church which, in the gravina settlement, was located at the top of the plateau and was also dug into the rock according to patterns and characteristics that took up those of the "built" churches, adapting them to the underground environment.
The rupestrian churches were a meeting point between East and West, between the Catholic liturgy and the Greek Orthodox cult, which integrated into a single mentality and religious expression. The architecture of the rupestrian church, as for the houses, proceeded by emptying the rocky bank, creating an initial plan, usually quadrangular, expanded following the morphology of the rock. After excavating the initial hall, other rooms were excavated, leaving a stone wall between one space and another, which was then sculpted to create architectural elements similar to those of built churches, such as pillars, arches, blind arches. Fake entablatures and decorations imitating fake domes were instead carved into the ceilings. The apse, or more apses, and niches were added to this complex plan consisting of several quadrangular rooms. Along the perimeter of the hall, in the same tuff bench, a seat was created, intended for the faithful, in the part of the church called naos, separated from the part reserved for the clergy, called bema, by the iconostasis. The main altar of the crypt was located in the sacred part, in a central position or against the wall of the apse.
Often built in isolated places, in intimate contact with nature, sanctuaries are an expression of the link between environment and art, between nature and man. Faith, humanity and traditions have their roots in rock sanctuaries.
The reasons for the choice to use a rock environment as a sanctuary are to be found in that value of sacredness that the cave, a place consecrated to initiatory rites, to the perennial conflict between light and darkness, between good and evil, has acquired since the archaic era.
The cave sanctuary represents a direct reference to the underground world, which allows the devotee to feel the presence of the afterlife more immediately. For many civilizations the cave is the birthplace of divinities, associated with the maternal womb, therefore an appropriate place to be used as a sanctuary. The importance attributed to these places seems to have had a significant weight in the process of Christianization of rock sites which affected various areas of the Mediterranean basin and above all central-southern Italy starting from the first centuries of the early Middle Ages. At the origin of the foundation of these spiritual places there are often apparitions, miracles, discoveries of images, miraculous transports, events involving children, shepherds and farmers.
The cave is also the place where the Christian hermits of the Middle Ages used to retreat from the world, in absolute isolation, for a period of contemplation or permanently. Once the hermit's existence ended, the rock cavity remained a sacred space that preserved the memory of an extraordinary experience of sanctity. This is the case of the hermitages of Calomini and San Viviano in Tuscany or, in Puglia, of the hermitages of Pulsano or the hermitage of San Biagio in Ostuni, hidden among the ravines of the Murge. In Puglia there are numerous cave sanctuaries that still continue to speak to the hearts of the faithful, places that refer to Jesus Christ, the Virgin or great Saints, destinations of rites and pilgrimages.
For the Christians of the Middle Ages, the pilgrimage to the great sacred places, linked to a supernatural presence or consecrated to the cult of the bodies of saints, was an important stage in life, a path of redemption and of getting closer to God, a journey of the heart, of the mind and of the spirit.
Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela were the most famous medieval sanctuaries and the destinations of the most common pilgrimages in the 11th century. From the time of the Lombard conquest, from the 6th to the 13th century, the main communication routes along Italy towards Jerusalem crossed the ancient Roman road axes of Central-Southern Italy, to reach the ports that led from Puglia to the Holy Land, a place where Jesus Christ was born, lived, died and resurrected. Pilgrims coming from all over Europe did not fail, before embarking for the East, to climb to the "Mount of the Angel" along the so-called Via Sacra Longobardorum, the ancient path which, branching off from the Via Appia Traiana, which connected Rome to Brindisi , allowed you to reach the Grotta di San Michele in Monte Sant'Angelo, at the height of the Gargano. The "Via dell'Angelo", corresponding to a Southern Via Francigena, began in Puglia, after crossing the San Severo Valley, and insinuated itself between the Gargano promontory and the Tavoliere plain, allowing, through more or less impervious paths , to reach the Michaelic Sanctuary.
Starting from the end of the 5th century, the extraordinary Gargano sanctuary became the most important place of Michaelic worship in the West, the destination of numerous pilgrimages by individual believers or more or less numerous groups, attracted to the sacred mountain by the fame of the extraordinary events happened there. In this place, pilgrims were given a special blessing, their sins were forgiven, even the most serious, and the doors of Paradise were opened. Crosses, runic inscriptions, graffiti of hands and feet, engraved on the ancient stones of the sanctuary, still remind us today of the intensity of this influx of faithful of every nationality.
During the period of the Crusades, the Sanctuary also became an obligatory stop for the knights who, before going to the Holy Land to free it from Muslim occupation, made sure to ask for the intercession of the leader of the celestial militias and perhaps returned to thank him at the end of their adventure . After the establishment of the Gargano sanctuary, the cult of the Archangel Michael, weigher of souls and companion of the dead, victor over the forces of Evil, united all of Europe transversally, and the Gargano became a center of irradiation of the cult even in very distant regions. distant.
Throughout Puglia there are numerous cave sanctuaries dedicated to San Michele, places that are characterized by common elements such as the presence of spring water that exudes from the walls, of woods, of the underground path, of harsh and wild scenarios, predisposed to contact with the divine.
The rock places of worship constitute a significant part of the historical-artistic riches of Puglia. There are hundreds of rupestrian churches scattered throughout the territory, dug along the steep walls of the ravines, in inaccessible places, sometimes hidden among the dense vegetation, decorated with thousands of spectacular frescoes, which testify to the religiosity of the inhabitants of the villages dug into the rock and they illuminate the darkness of the caves through the spark of art, maintaining the link with Byzantine art and oriental culture.
The wall paintings date back to the centuries between the 9th and 15th centuries, with greater frequency in the 12th-14th centuries. They were executed on site by generally anonymous artists, who neither signed nor dated their works. From these depictions emerge the various aspects of the daily life of medieval rural communities, that is, linguistic aspects, with inscriptions in Greek and Latin, religious beliefs, the material culture of the society of the time, with clothes, goldsmithery, trades, craftsmanship.
The pictorial cycles frescoed inside the rock churches are mostly iconic, that is, they represent individual figures of male and female saints, believed to be mediators between heaven and earth, capable of remedying the problems and miseries of everyday life. The paintings are due to devotional commissions, that is, to individual believers who had the saint to whom they were linked for the most varied reasons represented, without worrying about the fact that the same saint had already been depicted in the same church. What fascinates most about the frescoes, in addition to the high artistic quality, is the solemnity of the figures and above all their sumptuous clothing, with beautiful colors and full of ornamental objects.
The most widespread images are those depicting the Virgin Odegitria, the Déesis, Christ Pantocrator. Among the Saints, the most represented one is undoubtedly Saint Nicholas of Myra, followed by the Holy Helpers and the Holy Knights, such as George, Eustace, Theodore, the virgins such as Saint Lucia and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the great Patriarchs such as Saint Basil, the Hermit Saints such as Onofrius, Paul, Anthony the Abbot, and the Apostles, especially Peter. The image of the Archangel Michael is also frequent, commonly reproduced in armor with the sword or spear with which he defeats the devil, in the guise of a dragon.
Suspended between faith and legends, ravines and slightly incised karst valleys, Massafra guards its oldest treasures in the rock. For the vastness and beauty of its cave complexes, Massafra is also called the "Thebaid of Italy". Located in the hinterland north of Taranto, in fact, the city is furrowed by a series of suggestive ravines and valleys of karst origin. The Gravina of San Marco in particular divides the town into two parts connected by bridges and the crossings of them offer enchanting sceneries. Pagan rites and religious cults left their marks over centuries and Massafra shows them in its own territory through one of the largest and most fascinating rock complexes unfolding on the eastern side of San Marco’s Gravina where the rupestrian church of Santa Marina is located , and on the western one where the cave church of Sant'Antonio Abate is set.
We have to take the provincial road to Martina Franca, instead, to admire the Gravina of the "Madonna della Scala" which owes its name to the sanctuary and includes several housing units as corollary of the vast hypogeum.
The castle of Massafra is located in its historic center, in the locality of Pizzo and overlooks the gravina San Marco. Its structure and architectural motifs are similar to other Apulian castles, with four towers arranged in a quadrilateral linked by ramparts. The oldest towers have circular shape while the south-east one is octagonal
A scenic monumental staircase climbs the ravine to introduce the fascinating Sanctuary of "Madonna della Scala" in Massafra. There are 125 steps that climb the eastern side of the Gravina di Massafra and give access to the magnificent sanctuary, a fascinating worship place dedicated to the saint patron of the city since 1776.
The history of the sanctuary stems from the legend of the Miracle of the Hinds, according to which, around the fourteenth century, two hinds followed by hunters knelt at the point where a Byzantine fresco of the Virgin was found. In memory of the event, a small chapel was erected in the place of the miracle.
Guarded in a limestone block on the eighteenth-century high altar, the fresco is still the heart of the Sanctuary, a sumptuous baroque and neoclassical building, with a Latin cross plan and three naves with ribbed vaults, marked by massive pillars. The bottom of the gravina was known as Valle delle Rose for the spontaneous vegetation and medicinal herbs that grow near the river that runs through it. Close by there is a rock village consisting of over two hundred caves, accessible from the churchyard.
Along the gravina of the same name, in the territory of Massafra, there is the rock church dedicated to San Marco, carved out of the rock around the fourth century and, later, decorated with inscriptions and semi-columns in the last period of Byzantine domination, in the twelfth century. It is the effigy of the saint, triumphant on the devotional panel of the entrance, to welcome the visitor into the crypt, marked by two naves separated by central pillars and by a presbytery ending with two apses. The structure belongs to the scheme of churches with two twin apses, which the right one is a chair probably reserved for the client. The second apse would have served as a prosthesis for the preparation of the Eucharistic rite and the conservation of liturgical furnishings.Furthermore, from the small window open just above the first apse, the sun's rays illuminate the entire right aisle, creating an evocative atmosphere, an unusual episode in rock architecture.
The Crypt of Santa Marina is considered one of the largest basilica-type churches.Located on the southeastern part of the Gravina di San Marco in Massafra, it is part of a settlement of vast proportions, frequented from the early Middle Ages until the nineteenth century, hypothesis confirmed by presence of a monastery and numerous burials.
The presbytery ends with three apses with the equivalent number of altars which two dedicated to Latin cult, and one to the Greek cult. The same plan clearly shows oriental influences and the name of the crypt, named after a saint belonging to the Byzantine tradition, only confirms the hypothesis. At one time, the walls were completely covered with frescoes as evidenced by the remains of the representations of Santa Margherita, Santa Marina and Cristo Giudice, dating back to the fourteenth century.
The architecture of this famous rock church - currently altered by the destruction of the facade, which occurred at the end of the 19th century - has an inverse plan, with two pillars that divide the ambient into three naves and six bays, each having a differently decorated vault. The apsidal cap, currently disappeared, with two lateral niches in function of prothesis and diaconicon, was placed in the bema oriented east towards the south nave, to the left of the central entrance. The position of the bema testifies that the liturgical orientation has been respected, and this makes its excavation date to the end of the XII century. The Candelora is famous for its wall paintings that seem to follow the decorative models of the rocky Cappadocia.
The paintings are placed in the blind arches and on the eastern wall and the best known among them represents the Presentation in the Temple or Hypapanté, from the Comnena school and dating back to the first half of the thirteenth century, the only Christological scene among the subjects of the wall icons of the temple. Next to it, the presence of a representation of the Virgin who with her hand accompanies the Child holding a basket containing bread or eggs is also of extreme interest, probably a representation of the ancient Byzantine theme of the Christ Trophy or of spiritual nourishment (XIII- XIV century);
at his feet two figurines of patrons, probably husband and wife. In the northern wall the arches house, from right to left, the diptych of St. Nicholas the pilgrim and St. Stephen, also having at his feet a figure of a client in white priestly dress, and a Madonna with Child, placed between two images of St. Nicholas. All these sacred paintings can be dated between the end of the XIII and the beginning of the XIV century, as well as on the western wall the icons of San Giovanni Evangelista, San Pietro, Sant'Antonio Abate, San Marco - also has a figure of client with censer - and a Virgin and Child enthroned or Platitera.
The large underground complex actually consists of two adjacent rock churches, located in the basement of the former Pagliari hospital. The current reservoir is due to their fusion, through the demolition of the rock diaphragm that separated them. Both churches are binavate, with the apses facing east. The oldest of the crypts, whose excavation could date back to the X-XI century, is the one located further south, and has the raised quadrangular bema with semi-circular apse, most likely, originally, accompanied by a wooden iconostasis and which it seems attributable to the Greek rite. The Latin rite was officiated in the other church, which shows, in the flat-bottomed apse, an 18th-century baroque altar, topped with a fresco by Sant'Antonio Abate, dated to the same period. The frescoes by Blessed Pope Urban V date back to the 14th-15th centuries, holding a tablet with the faces of Saints Peter and Paul, the Annunciation, located to the left of the entrance, another fresco of Saint Anthony, and that of San Giacomo, dressed as a pilgrim.
In the oldest crypt, on the sides of the entrance door, San Nicola and Santa Caterina (XII-XIII century) are painted on the left. The representation of Sant’Eligio stands on the southern wall, flanked by a diptych with Santa Elena and San Leonardo and, therefore, a large fresco of San Nicola and a Virgin with Child. Next to the bema there is a large niche where the Crucifixion with the Trinity is depicted. Before the bema, St. James the Apostle is still frescoed, while in the presbytery, from right to left, we find images of an Annunciation, of St. Peter Martyr, of the Pantocrator in déesis, of another painting by Sant'Antonio Abate and, therefore, of a San Vito, a Crucifixion and a Santo Stefano. The bema frescoes have been dated to the 14th-15th centuries.
The hypogean church probably originates from a classical chamber tomb, readapted to a sacred place in the early Middle Ages. It is accessed through a downhill corridor or dromos and currently has a large rectangular hall with a single quadrangular pillar.
The vault is flat and partially collapsed; to the east there is a semi-iconostasis and therefore the bema, slightly raised, which has the semicircular apse, and the only diaconicon on its left. In fact, the excavation, to the right of the apse, of the Prothesis - the other constant element of the Byzantine architecture of the Bema - seems to have been interrupted due to static instability in the rock bank.
The endowment of the sacred frescoes of the rock church is remarkable: starting from the left, on the iconostatic septum we find the remains of the portraits of the apostles Saint Andrew and Saint Peter, then a holy deacon, probably Saint Stephen;
on the first pillar, a Saint Nicholas, flanked by the Archangel Gabriel on the semi-collapsed wall of access to the apse, and the Virgin Annunciation on the opposite septum, flanked by the pillar, where traces of a halo remain faint. In the arch between the two pillars are paintings of Santi Medici San Cosma (right) and San Damiano (left), of Comnene influence, dating back to the thirteenth century. Even the San Paolo Eremita and Sant’Antonio Abate, frescoed in the arch between the classroom and the diaconicon, belong to the conservative Byzantine art of this period.
In the apse there is a beautiful representation of the Byzantine school of the Pantocrator in déesis dating back to the fourteenth century. Traces of other frescoes can be found on the pillar of the classroom and on the west wall of the crypt, the latter most likely depicting an Annunciation.
