Pisticci

Pisticci sits on three eroded clay hills in the southern Matera province, twenty kilometers from the Ionian beach at Marina di Pisticci, and serves as the most populous town in the province after Matera itself. On 9 February 1688, a violent landslide cut the town in half, killing four hundred people and destroying entire districts. The survivors refused to move down to the valley.

They rebuilt where the landslide had passed, in straight lines of identical low white houses, each two rooms wide with a pitched red tile roof, the rione that came to be called the Dirupo, the cliff. Three hundred of these houses still stand, the visual signature of the town. The older Terravecchia district sits on the highest hilltop, with the square tower of the Norman castle, the medieval gate, and the Chiesa Madre.

The coastal frazione of Marina di Pisticci holds the Bandiera Blu, and the surrounding clay hills produce truffles that anchor the Città del Tartufo designation. The hamlet of Marconia, named for Guglielmo Marconi, is the modern centre on the plain.