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.
From the top of the summit it looks,
as from a large open balcony,
the blue splendor of the Gulf of Taranto.
The traveler who passes by far,
sees on the hill that rises from the vast plain,
its white and perched houses.
They call it, the spy of Puglia.
Mottola is a pretty town overlooking the Ionian Sea from the top of the edge of the Murgia plateau. In fact, with its 387mt above sea level, from the roundabout of Mottola, the panoramic area, you can embrace the whole Gulf of Taranto with your eyes. In some days, clear and windy you can even see the mountains of Calabria, giving a breathtaking scenery thanks to the sea-mountains combination. Due to its proximity to Taranto, the town has undergone the influence of the capital of Magna Grecia over the centuries and walls dating back to the 4th century BC have been found right in the historic center. The town develops in steps tending circularly towards the historic center with the characteristic historic center also called the medieval village of Schiavonia for the repopulation that occurred during the sixteenth century due to the arrival of Balkan people who fled to the Turks. The Ionian-Tarantino arch has as its geographical and landscape characteristic the ravines, deep incisions that descend from the Murgia towards the sea. The spectacular nature of these real canyons has promoted the formation of the Gravine Regional Park, a territory that opens like a fan with the main pivot of the city of Taranto.
The impact of man on these environments, due to the difficult accessibility, has always been minimal and this has allowed the conservation of a natural environment that has disappeared elsewhere. This oasis effect has also allowed the preservation of rock settlements, in some cases real villages that especially during the Middle Ages flourished along these valleys
Mottola can boast the presence in its territory of countless cave settlements, so much so that it was called in the past with the epithet of "Land of the caves of God".
The rupestrian villages of Petruscio and Casalrotto are a true union of history and nature and are highly suggestive but the rupestrian churches located outside these villages are highly significant and of great interest. The most famous are: the rupestrian church of San Nicola, also called the sistine rupestrian chapel due to the large number of frescoes inside, the rupestrian church of S.Angelo, the rupestrian church of Santa Margherita and the rupestrian church of San Gregorio.
To frame the presence of the many rupestrian churches there are extensive woods that cover almost a third of the municipal area of Mottola.
The Gravines di Petruscio and the Lame di Casalrotto, San Sabino, San Vito, Le Grotte, on the other hand, house the numerous rupestrian churches, among them Santa Margherita and San Nicola, with the latter so rich in icons and frescoes to deserve the definition of "Sistine Chapel of rupestrian civilization".
The ancient rupestrian villages of Casalrotto and Petruscio are preserved intact along the Mottola ravines. Along the ravines walls, caves, primitive dwellings and rupestrian churches are carved into the rock: it is a real window on history, the one found in the territory of Mottola, in the underground villages of Casalrotto and Petruscio, crossed by paths, ladders, with warehouses and artisan plants, wells, cisterns, channels, drains and organic tombs with family tombs.
Used not only for housing purposes, but mainly as places of worship, the villages still preserve churches, sanctuaries and rupestriany crypts, fascinating examples of underground architecture where architectural and decorative elements of hypogean buildings of Greek-Byzantine and Latin tradition are recovered, including some beautifully frescoed.
Not to be missed, in the Casalrotto complex, is the rupestrian-hewn church of San Nicola and the rupestrian sanctuaries of San Cesario, Sant’Apollinare, Sant’Angelo and the Crypt of Santa Margherita.
The focal points of the village of Petruscio are, instead, the three churches, the Poles, the Petruscio, the "Cathedral" and also the "Home of Igumeno", the head of the ecclesiastical community, the Prison and the "Rifugio De Rosa", used in the nineteenth century as a refuge by the homonymous brigand.
The visit of the rupestrian churches of Mottola is a unique and fascinating opportunity to immerse into medieval atmospheres and discover precious treasure cases guarding over a thousand years of art and history.
In the heart of the rupestrian-hewn village of Casalrotto in Mottola, the rupestrian church dedicated to San Nicola was dug into the rock in the ninth century and is located near the ancient consular road, called "via tarantina" in the Middle Ages. The beauty of its frescoes, cleaned up for the first time in 1972 and restored in August 1989, after the vandalic theft of some heads of the masonry icons, was defined the Sistine Chapel of the rupestrian civilization in the South of Italy. In this cave church we really find the most complete and amazing picture gallery of the popular Apulian sacred art, that manages to fully highlight the testimonies of the various theological and artistic influences of Eastern and Latin brand, during almost four centuries of Middle Ages. The church is located on the edge of the little ravine and can be accessed through stairs carved into the rock and adapted with the recent iron structure prepared by the Superintendency. San Nicola can be defined as a hypogeum sanctuary of the inscribed cruciform type and the archaic structure of the early Middle Ages let us hypothesize comparisons with the Syriac churches of the sixth century, due to the division of the hall into three naves of two bays in the middle of only two massive pillars.
It is a church, with an unusual layout, it is extremely suggestive and represents a real "pearl" of the rupestrian civilization. It is located about a kilometer east of Casalrotto farm and is carved on the left wall of the homonymous slightly incised karst valley
The interior of the crypt is reached after enjoying the view of the wild and bursting natural vegetation of the ravine and after having crossed a narrow walkway overhanging the ravine. A small hypogeum cavern below the entrance is probably a funerary destination.
The rupestrian-hewn church of Sant'Angelo, inside the rupestrian-hewn village of Casalrotto "capital of rupestrian civilization", is unique in Italy from the architectural point of view, due to its two hypogeum planes, with the lower used for burial purpose (analogue examples are found in Asia Minor). The church has a roofless pronaos (small atrium) in the area before the entrance and a small cell to the left, probably the custodian's shelter, placed near a cistern to collect water. The church has a double entrance, with the one on the right decorated with a double ring.
The semi-buried rupestrian church of San Gregorio overlooks a very large grotto complex - including the two near rupestrian churches of the Madonna delle Sette Lampade and the church of the Madonna degli Angeli - and even though less imposing than the scenery of many other rupestrian settlements of Mottola, the interior of the church has architectural and iconographic features of great value and monumentality, thus highly considered among scholars and art historians.