La Cripta del Peccato Originale (The Crypt of The
Original Sin
) in a quiet gorge amongst farmland in rural Basilicata, southern Italy. It calls itself the Sistine Chapel of the South after it's magnificent cave paintings of
The Creation
and
The Fall
made by an artist know only as The Painter of the Flowers of Matera. These are 9th century, hundreds of years earlier than the work of the likes of Giotto. At that time God was always portrayed young and beardless. The Crypt was only rediscovered in 1963.
An assignment for the New Yorker about the troglodyte city of Matera.
