Città dell'Olio
Città dell'Olio in Basilicata
7 towns
Basilicata has 7 Città dell'Olio communes in our index. They cluster in the Matera and Potenza provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Matera, Acerenza, and Aliano. 4 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Matera
Province: Matera · 401 m
Cave dwellings carved into limestone since the Paleolithic, called the shame of Italy in the 1950s and made European Capital of Culture in 2019.
Acerenza
Province: Potenza · 833 m
A walled ridge town at 833 meters in the north Lucanian hills, archbishopric since 1068 under a Romanesque cathedral begun in 1080.
Aliano
Province: Matera · 555 m
The clay-hill village at 555 meters above the Agri valley where Carlo Levi served his 1935 exile and is buried in the cemetery.
Melfi
Province: Potenza · 530 m
At 530 meters on the slopes of Monte Vulture, first Norman capital of the south and the seat of Frederick II's 1231 Constitutions of Melfi.
Miglionico
Province: Matera · 461 m
A hilltop borgo at 461 meters above the Bradano, the seven-tower castle that gave the 1485 Conspiracy of the Barons its hall.
Rotondella
Province: Matera · 576 m
The 'Balcony of the Ionian' — a 2,400-resident Lucanian borgo on a 576m hilltop overlooking the Metapontino plain and the Ionian Sea, with intact medieval streets, the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Neve, and a high-quality DOP olive oil from the surrounding terraced groves.
San Mauro Forte
Province: Matera · 540 m
A 540-meter Lucanian hill town built around a surviving Norman tower, where the Sagra dei Campanacci on 16 January wakes the village with cowbells.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Putignano
Province: Bari
Europe's longest-running carnival — Putignano Carnevale has run continuously since 1394, with 631 years of cartapesta papier-mâché floats, a 26,000-resident Murgia town on the Bari–Lecce plateau, and the Grotta del Trullo karst cave inside the centro.
Pistoia
Province: Pistoia
Italy's nursery capital and the medieval Tuscan rival that gave its name to the pistol — a quietly extraordinary centro storico of zebra-striped Romanesque churches, Andrea della Robbia's polychrome frieze on the Ospedale del Ceppo, and Italy's Capital of Culture 2017, all 30 minutes from Florence by train.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Caldes
Province: Trento
A scattered Val di Sole commune on the Noce, six hamlets gathered around a thirteenth-century tower-house castle that once belonged to the Thun family.
Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria on the old Via Flaminia, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.