Basilicata · Matera
Irsina
Called Montepeloso until 1895, a 548-meter Bradano-valley hill town whose cathedral holds the only surviving polychrome sculpture attributed to Andrea Mantegna.
Known for
MANTEGNA
The Sant'Eufemia in the co-cathedral is the only complete sculpture attributed to Andrea Mantegna, commissioned 1453.
MONTEPELOSO
The town's name until 1895; the triple mountain with a castle in Sant'Eufemia's hand is its medieval coat of arms.
IPOGEI
Network of rupestrian cellars and cisterns beneath the centro, cut into the tufa spur and still used by households today.
When to visit
Best · Apr–Oct
- J
- F
- M
- A
- M
- J
- J
- A
- S
- O
- N
- D
- Best
- Hot or crowded
- Quiet
- Mostly closed
The festa: Eufemia di Calcedonia, 16 September
Why come
Irsina sits at 548 meters above the Bradano valley, on the border between Basilicata and Puglia, twenty-nine kilometers from Matera. The town was called Montepeloso until 1895 and was raised to an archbishop's seat in 1452. The following year, the priest Roberto de Mabilia, then working as an ecclesiastical notary in Padua, commissioned a young Andrea Mantegna to produce a painted and sculpted Sant'Eufemia for his home town.
The polychrome statue, 1. 72 meters tall, carved from Nanto stone of the Veneto and showing the saint with a lion at her side and a triple mountain with a castle, the symbol of Montepeloso, in her hand, was identified as Mantegna's own work in 1996 and confirmed by later scholars. It stands in the Co-Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta and is the only sculpture by the Renaissance master preserved in its entirety anywhere.
The historic centre, on a tufaceous spur, is laced with rupestrian caves, cisterns and underground spaces. The Bradano flows below, separating Irsina from the Murge plateau.
The Sunday letter
We haven’t written Irsina’s letter yet.
One town every Sunday, with the photo, the food, the festa. Be there when this one comes up. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.
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What to see
Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta
Thirteenth-century cathedral on the highest point of the borgo, holding the polychrome Sant'Eufemia attributed to Andrea Mantegna.
Sant'Eufemia di Mantegna
Polychrome stone statue commissioned 1453, 1.72 meters tall, the only surviving sculpture attributed to Andrea Mantegna in its entirety.
Ipogei e cantine rupestri
Network of underground cellars, cisterns and rupestrian rooms cut into the tufaceous spur beneath the historic centre.
Centro storico
Medieval Montepeloso core on a tufa spur, renamed Irsina in 1895, with narrow alleys and the cathedral at the summit.
Belvedere sulla Valle del Bradano
Viewpoint over the Bradano valley toward the Murge of Puglia, the eastern edge of the borgo.
The slow-trip planner
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Living here
- Population 4,449
- Off the beaten pathi
- Pharmacy: none mapped
- High school within a 30-minute drive
- Train station in the comune
- Nearest airport Bari / Brindisi, 1 h 23 min drive
- Regional capital Potenza, 1 h 7 min drive
Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources
Recognised as
The numbers
- Elevation: 548 m
- Population: 4,449
- Surface area: 263.47 km²
These figures were compiled from public directories — ISTAT, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata — and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.
Close by
More towns near Irsina
Matera
Province: Matera
Cave dwellings carved into limestone since the Paleolithic, called the shame of Italy in the 1950s and made European Capital of Culture in 2019.
Gravina in Puglia
Province: Bari
Puglia's deepest gravina — a 42,700-resident Bari-province town built on the lip of a 100m-deep limestone canyon, with the 18th-c Ponte Acquedotto walkway across the gorge that James Bond crossed in No Time to Die, a network of rupestrian cave churches in the cliff face, and the four-signal BPB + Cittaslow + Via Francigena + Parco Nazionale combination.
Grottole
Province: Matera
A hilltop borgo at 481 meters between the Bradano and Basento, where six hundred empty houses outnumber residents in the centro storico.
Poggiorsini
Province: Bari
The smallest commune in metropolitan Bari, an Orsini estate of 1609 that became an independent town only in 1957.
Acerenza
Province: Potenza
A walled ridge town at 833 meters in the north Lucanian hills, archbishopric since 1068 under a Romanesque cathedral begun in 1080.
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