In the historic interpretation of the locals we often find news on Irsina about the strategic importance and for having played an important transit role. Going beyond the inevitable localism and search for recognitions of wars never fought, from the discoveries made in the urban center shows that Irsina was a inhabited center like the nearby Monte Irsi, Gravina, Timmari etc. which was part of the Peucetian ethnos. The local dialect, however, has peculiar characteristics and is influenced by the neighboring dialects, being able to glimpse the influences of Gravina, Matera (therefore Appulo-Barese dialects) and Lucanians. Unlike Matera which is a piece of Puglia loaned to Basilicata, Irsina is truly culturally and anthropologically a frontier land between the Lucanian and Apulian world.
The history of Irsina is not very different from the centers of the region. Passed through the different dominations that characterized Southern Italy and was the fiefdom of several noble families as elsewhere.
The historic center of Irsina today looks like a small medieval village that can be easily visited on foot. The oldest part is represented by a maze of characteristic alleys of what was once the Greek neighborhood in which over time, through a series of small demolitions, new openings and squares were created and several small churches adjacent to the houses were built. Sant’Andrea, Santa Lucia, Purgatorio, San Nicola de Morgitiis, San Nicola dei Poveri, San Rocco, the Annunziata, the Addolorata, are small churches that the population wanted to build next to their homes. In the centuries between the 16th and 18th centuries, large ecclesiastical structures and large noble palaces arose along the road axis of Porta Maggiore which still represents the expansion axis of the contemporary city.
The town still retains part of the ancient medieval city wall that surrounds the historic center, two cylindrical towers located at the far end of the town and the two ancient access gates, Porta Maggiore known as Sant'Eufemia and Porta Lenazza also known as Arenacea. At the center stands the majestic cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta.
Santa Maria Assunta of Irsina is a majestic building and represents a unique case in the panorama of religious buildings in Southern Italy. The first building dates back to the first millennium, this first structure was presumably destroyed by the Saracen siege of 988. The church was quickly rebuilt because it is already mentioned in a bull of 1123. Of its ancient structure, the crypt, a suggestive church with frescoes from the 11th century, located under the apse of the cathedral. The cathedral over the centuries has followed the historical fortunes and the vicissitudes of the town, characterized by continuous and repeated looting and destruction. The layout of what is now the cathedral is an eighteenth-century building which, through a recent and in-depth structural analysis, has shown a series of surprising features. Its bell tower despite having a Romanesque base structure reveals an original and unusual Gothic style at the top, unique in the southern panorama.
Of great importance are also the works of art present inside, coming in part from a fifteenth-century donation by a notary of Irsinese origin Roberto De Mabilia. Among the works of art donated stands the stone statue of the patron saint of Irsina, Sant'Eufemia, whose fine workmanship and beauty made some scholars speculate that it could have been the work of Mantegna, to date this attribution remains a highly credited hypothesis but not of the all proven.
Just near the Mantegna statue, near an altar, there is a dark staircase leading to the crypt. Here you can admire a sign of the passage of the Templars at Irsina. On the marble floor, you can glimpse the "rose of the Templars" which every year, during the summer solstice, is illuminated by a powerful ray of sunshine.
Another object of exceptional historical and artistic value is the crucifix of the Donatellian school on the main altar of the Cathedral. It is a wooden statue of fine workmanship whose peculiarity is hidden inside. After a recent restoration, a small door on the side of Christ came to light, which closes a small compartment and a system of cables for articulating the arms. The hypothesis is that that small space could be a reliquary or that it contained a device that allowed the escape of a liquid similar to blood from the side while the system of cables tied to the arms suggests that it is a very rare and ancient automaton.
To these are added other works of art of equal beauty and value, first of all a valuable wooden choir surmounted by an ancient pipe organ.
As in many other lucanian towns also in Irsina there is a considerable intangible cultural heritage linked to festivals, traditions and religious anniversaries. Among the most significant expressions of this heritage in Irsina there are undoubtedly the human towers, called "u pizz’cantò".
The traditional human tower sees in the lower part 4 or 5 young men who, keeping close to each other through the arms, arrange themselves in a circle allowing other young people to climb up to form a tower. As soon as the tower is formed and equilibrium is reached, the tower begins to rotate to the rhythm of verses that allude to the ever-imminent danger of a social reversal. These towers in Irsina take on a meaning that is now religious, now political, now social, in the past, the p’zz’canto also formed on three floors and the groups that built the towers were different. There was in fact the p'zz’cantò of farmers, artisans, etc..., today in Irsina this of the towers is a custom linked to the feast of the Madonna della Pietà.
This tradition also existed in other towns of Basilicata but today it has almost disappeared. Irsina has managed to keep alive and provide lifeblood to this tradition with a dedicated festival and through twinning with the Catalan Spanish cities where a similar tradition is still present and alive.
A local legend says that the Church of San Francesco was originally a Norman castle donated by Frederick II in person to the saint, passing through these places at the time of his trip to the Holy Land. Of course there is no documented information about this, however the presence of the Franciscan Friars in Irsina dates back to the early fourteenth century, as attested by some historical manuscripts.
The present church and the adjoining convent complex were built around 1531 by the Conventual Friars, with the permission of Clement VII. The church, rebuilt around 1717, today retains important works of fine art, in addition to the magnificent cycle of frescoes preserved in the fourteenth-century crypt entirely frescoed by works belonging to the school of Giotto and built around 1370. Kept with extreme care, these frescoes have kept the bright and brilliant colors of when they were made.
The Civic Museum Janora houses the precious collection of the Irsinian historian and archaeologist Michele Janora, born in Montepeloso, now Irsina, on September 3, 1867 and died at the young age of 43. In 1903 he was appointed Royal Honorary Inspector for the monuments and excavations of the Municipality of Montepeloso. His passion for antiquity led him to collect a large amount of archaeological artifacts and preserve them in the family palace.
The more than 1600 finds, mostly coming from necropolis or individual tombs scattered along the eastern belt of Basilicata and north-western Puglia, testify to the life of the city and the territory since the Neolithic.
The most important nucleus of the collection consists of ceramics with geometric decoration, red figures, black paint, acroma, weapons and ornaments in bronze and iron dating from prehistoric times to the Hellenistic age. Of the entire collection, a selection of about 300 finds specially studied and restored is on display.
The scientific and exhibition project of the Museum, which occupies six rooms in the left wing of the convent of San Francesco, has allowed the realization of a chronological-thematic path that starts from prehistory and ends with the Hellenistic age.
In an small lane near Via S. Chiara 14 there is an eclectic house that nobody knows much about. The "House of shells" is entirely decorated with pebbles and sea shells. Unfortunately a coliseum of little tellins surmounted the facade, collapsed a few years ago, while now you can only see the tower of Pisa and the infinite decorative details that can leave you speechless!
It is in the Middle Ages that very long tunnels were built under the Irsina hill that were used to channel the water that still flows from the eighteenth-century fountain called "The 12 fountains".
A peculiarity of Irsina is to host a remarkable English-speaking community over the past few years on a par with Spain's Costa del Sol without the sea.
