The Crypt of the Original Sin is available for visit with advance reservation
Book NowKEEP YOUR TICKET!
Within 7 days of the date indicated on your booking, you may visit – at a discounted price
the MUSMA Museo della Scultura Contemporanea Matera and La Casa di Ortega
History of the "Crypt"
The Sistine Chapel of the Rupestrian art
The Crypt of Original Sin was the cult site of a Benedictine rock monastery from the Lombard period. It is embellished with a cycle of frescoes dated between the 8th and 9th centuries, painted by the artist known as the Painter of the Flowers of Matera and expressing the historical characteristics of Benedictine-Beneventan art. The left wall is enlivened by three niches, on which the triarchies of the Apostles, the Virgin Queen and the Archangels are depicted respectively. The back wall, however, is enlivened by a large pictorial cycle depicting episodes of Creation and Original Sin.
Read More
Opera Luce
The Crypt of Original Sin is not an aesthetic itch, it is a place of faith and religious mission inside which frescoes painted 500 years before Giotto can be found. We have, therefore, worked for the conservation of this place of worship by creating the conditions for an exemplary intervention: an interdisciplinary group, the presence of the best in Italy to build a model to be transferred to the maintenance, conservation and valorisation of the entire heritage southern rock.
Along this path, the problem of lighting the Grotto also arose.