Matera, city of caves in Basilicata
Cave dwellings in the Casalnuovo quarter of Matera, an area that was inhabited by Albanian migrants. Until the 1950s hundreds of families were still living crowded into cave-houses here. The squalor and malaria-ridden conditions became a national scandal and finally the cave residents were moved - by law - to modern buildings on the plateau above.
Photo by Ludo Kuipers, Tue Oct 18, 1994