Matera, 1945-1960

The southern Italian city of Matera was dubbed a national disgrace in the immediate post-war period due to media and political focus on its distinctive cave homes, the Sassi, which housed an estimated 15,000 people in the early 1950s. The Italian government implemented a rehousing programme for Matera's cave dwellers in 1952. As a result, the Sassi were gradually emptied and the local population...