Casa Grotta in Sasso Caveoso
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Transcript
A reconstructed casa grotta makes daily life tangible: limited light, multipurpose space, storage, bedding and provision for animals. Exhibits of this kind are useful if treated as evidence of a particular period, not as a timeless model for every household in every century.
After the Second World War, Matera’s conditions became a national political issue. Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti denounced the situation in 1948; Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi visited in 1950 and the phrase “vergogna nazionale” — national shame — became closely attached to Matera. Different accounts preserve slightly different political wording, so it is safer to say the label emerged in this post-war campaign than to pretend one man invented it on one perfect date.
Law 619 of 1952 provided for clearing insanitary dwellings and relocating residents. Thousands moved to new neighbourhoods. That was not a cinematic evacuation from “the caves”; it was a state housing intervention affecting communities with deep local ties.
The rooms are small. The policy history is not.