What is Aliano known for?

Confined here 1935-36, wrote Cristo si è fermato a Eboli in 1945, buried in the village cemetery in 1975 at his own request. Eroded clay badlands surrounding the town, the bare grey ridges and pinnacles that became the visual signature of Levi's exile narrative. Franco Arminio's August festival of poetry, music and walking through the badlands, anchor of the new Lucanian cultural calendar.

Aliano is a comune in the province of Matera, Basilicata region of Italy, about 116 kilometers from Taranto.

Basilicata · Matera

Aliano

The clay-hill village at 555 meters above the Agri valley where Carlo Levi served his 1935 exile and is buried in the cemetery.

555m

Elevation

116 km / 72 mi

Nearest hub (Taranto)

880

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

Aliano sits on a clay hill at 555 meters in the southern Matera province, above the Agri river valley and the Sauro stream. The town is surrounded by calanchi, the eroded badlands of bare clay carved by rainwater into ridges and pinnacles, the landscape that became the visual signature of Carlo Levi's exile. Levi, a Turin doctor, painter and anti-fascist, was confined here from 1935 to 1936 under Mussolini's regime. The book he wrote afterward, Cristo si è fermato a Eboli, published in 1945, gave the village the invented name Gagliano and turned the south's poverty into national literature. The title comes from a local saying: that Christ stopped short at Eboli, in Campania, and never reached this far. Levi was buried in the village cemetery at his request in 1975. The house where he was held is now a museum, and the surrounding territory is run as a Parco Letterario. The annual Festival La Luna e i Calanchi, founded by poet Franco Arminio, fills the village every August with readings and music on the bare clay ridges.

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Gallery

7 photos · scroll →

Known for

Casa di Carlo Levi
The house where Levi was held in confino from 1935 to 1936, preserved with his paintings, books and personal effects, now the heart of the Parco Letterario.
Tomba di Carlo Levi
Levi's grave in the village cemetery, where he asked to be buried in 1975 alongside the contadini he wrote about.
Calanchi di Aliano
Eroded clay badlands surrounding the village, carved by rainwater into bare ridges and pinnacles, a protected geomorphological landscape.
Centro storico
Hilltop borgo of stone houses with the typical aerial doors, second-floor entrances reached by external stairs, described by Levi in his memoir.
Festival La Luna e i Calanchi
Annual August poetry and music festival founded by Franco Arminio, held in the streets of the village and on the calanchi ridges.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September into October are the months when the calanchi hold their best light: the bare clay turns silver at dawn and gold at sunset, and the air is clear enough to see down the Agri valley to the Ionian. July and August push past thirty-five degrees and the village empties between two and six in the afternoon, though the Luna e i Calanchi festival in the second half of August packs the streets every night. November through March is quiet and often raw, the calanchi softened by mist. Carlo Levi's house and the Parco Letterario operate year-round but with reduced hours in winter. The patronal Sant'Antonio falls on 13 June.