Cave church of Santa Maria de Idris
This cave church is located on the picturesque Monterrone rock mass, which stands between Sasso Caveoso and the ancient Casalnuovo district. From this spur of natural rock, already a film set for the Warner Bros. film Wonder Woman, you can admire a panorama that is nothing short of amazing.
The church, connected by a corridor to the rock church of San Giovanni in Monterrone, appears to be half-built, following the collapse of the façade in the 15th century. A small bell tower gives the rock complex a harmonious appearance. Its name derives from the Greek term Odigitria, which means she who shows the way, which by corruption became de Idris. It is commonly called the litre, since the Virgin, in a seventeenth-century tempera painting, is represented sitting with two half-liters (terracotta amphorae of half a liter each) called rezzolelle at her feet. This painting is located in the center, above the nineteenth-century altar, surmounted, in turn, by a representation of God the Father. To the left of the altar there are the paintings of San Michele Arcangelo and the Madonna, while, on the right, there is the scene of the Conversion of Sant’Eustachio, patron saint of Matera, and a Nativity. Recognizable by the lily, it follows the painting of Saint Anthony of Padua. In the chapel located to the right of the entrance, immediately after a cistern, a Crucifixion is painted. These paintings date back to the Baroque period. The iron cross, four meters high and placed at the top of the rocky spur, was built in 1937 in memory of the Pauline Missions of that year.
Cave church of San Giovanni in Monterrone
The cave church, which takes its name from the rock spur into which it is excavated, Monterrone, is dedicated to San Giovanni Battista. It has a single nave and has been altered, compared to its original appearance, by the creation of lateral rooms, created mainly for funerary purposes. Access is currently permitted from the church of Santa Maria De Idris, through a communicating corridor.
The church of San Giovanni al Monterrone was desecrated during the eighteenth century and, subsequently, in 1803, it was granted by the Episcopal Seminary in perpetual emphyteusis to the confraternity of Santa Maria dell’Idris. The brotherhood created a new façade, a new altar, and the corridor connecting it with the adjacent church of Santa Maria de Idris.
On this occasion, during the cutting, some frescoes were sacrificed, of which only the upper parts survive: a Madonna with Child and a panel with Saints Peter and Paul can still be distinguished.
In the 1970s the Provincial Tourism Board carried out a general cleaning of the site, the demolition of an ossuary, the reconstruction of the walls knocked down following acts of vandalism, the arrangement of the entrance door and the creation of a lighting system.
Following the demolition of an illegal building from the 1950s, built close to the church, the rocky side was exposed to the elements for several years. The last restoration of 2021 finally involved the recovery of the remaining frescoes, which have returned to shine.
Entering the hall from the original access door, on the left you can admire the seventeenth-century fresco of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist. The Baptist points to the Agnus Dei, represented a little further down, while the Evangelist holds the chalice with the serpent, his iconographic attribute.
Proceeding towards the chapel on the left, St. Michael the Archangel and St. Nicholas are represented next. In front of these last frescoes there is a Christ Pantocrator, who stands above the remains of an altar against the wall and, therefore, an Anonymous Holy Monk.
On the right of the original entrance there is the fresco of Sant’Andrea, of which only the face is visible, severe and sharp, surmounted in the palimpsest by that of the Madonna of Tenderness, who holds the Child in her arms, represented in the holosoma position. Next to it, in sequence, there is another palimpsest fresco, depicting an Anonymous Bishop Saint, surmounted by an Anonymous Young Saint. Then, there is the painting of San Gerolamo Vescovo. Then there is a valuable diptych representing San Pietro and San Giacomo Maggiore; in front of this diptych there is a beautiful representation of the Annunciation, on which there is the fresco of the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan River.
These frescoes can be dated between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century.
