What is Irsina known for?

The Sant'Eufemia in the co-cathedral is the only complete sculpture attributed to Andrea Mantegna, commissioned 1453. The town's name until 1895; the triple mountain with a castle in Sant'Eufemia's hand is its medieval coat of arms. Network of rupestrian cellars and cisterns beneath the centro, cut into the tufa spur and still used by households today.

When is the best time to visit Irsina?

Apr–Oct. April through June and September through October are the comfortable months in the Bradano hills, with green wheat fields and dry evenings at 548 meters. July and August touch the mid-thirties on the open spur but stay cool in the rupestrian cellars beneath the centro. November through March is quiet, the cathedral keeps shorter hours and the Mantegna can usually be seen without a queue. The patronal festa of the Beata Vergine Addolorata falls in late September. The light over the Bradano valley toward the Murge in autumn is the photographic anchor of Irsina.

Irsina is a comune in the province of Matera, Basilicata region of Italy, about 87 kilometers from Bari.

How do I get to Irsina?

From Bari, Irsina is roughly 87 km by road.

Basilicata · Matera

Irsina

A 548-meter Bradano-valley hill town, called Montepeloso until 1895, whose cathedral holds a Renaissance rarity.

Known for

MANTEGNA
The Sant'Eufemia in the co-cathedral is the only complete sculpture attributed to Andrea Mantegna, commissioned 1453.
MONTEPELOSO
The town's name until 1895; the triple mountain with a castle in Sant'Eufemia's hand is its medieval coat of arms.
IPOGEI
Network of rupestrian cellars and cisterns beneath the centro, cut into the tufa spur and still used by households today.
LENTICCHIA DI ALTAMURA
The commune lies inside the Lenticchia di Altamura IGP production zone.

When to visit

Best · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

The festa: Eufemia di Calcedonia, 16 September

Why come

Irsina sits on the border between Basilicata and Puglia, twenty-nine kilometers from Matera, where the Bradano flows below and separates the town from the Murge plateau. The historic centre occupies a tufaceous spur riddled beneath with rupestrian caves and cisterns, a settlement built as much downward as up.

The town's civic and religious history turned on a single commission. Raised to an archbishop's seat in 1452, Montepeloso saw its priest, Roberto de Mabilia, then working as an ecclesiastical notary in Padua, commission a young sculptor from that city to carve a Sant'Eufemia for his home town the following year. The statue he sent back carries the old town's own coat of arms, the triple mountain and castle, in the saint's hand, binding the imported Renaissance object to the local heraldry it was made to honor. A hill town on a river border ended up holding, by way of a notary's commission to a distant workshop, a devotional statue that ties its Puglia-facing geography to a Veneto hand and its pre-1895 name to the stone the saint holds.

The Sunday letter

We haven’t written Irsina’s letter yet.

One town every Sunday, with the photo, the food, the festa. Be there when this one comes up. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

What to see

Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta
Thirteenth-century cathedral on the highest point of the borgo. Raised to an archbishop's seat in 1452, it holds the statue as its principal treasure.
Sant'Eufemia di Mantegna
Carved from Nanto stone of the Veneto, the saint stands with a lion at her side. Identified as Andrea Mantegna's own work in 1996, confirmed by later scholars.
Ipogei e cantine rupestri
Underground cellars, cisterns and rupestrian rooms cut into the tufaceous spur, reaching beneath the historic centre's alleys and houses.
Centro storico
Narrow alleys climbing the spur to the cathedral at the summit, the surviving fabric of the medieval town before its 1895 renaming.
Belvedere sulla Valle del Bradano
Viewpoint over the Bradano valley toward the Murge of Puglia, the eastern edge of the borgo.

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Living here

Population 4,449
Off the beaten pathi
Pharmacy: none mapped
High school within a 30-minute drive
Train station in the comune
Nearest airport Bari / Brindisi, 1 h 23 min drive
Regional capital Potenza, 1 h 7 min drive

Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

Recognised as

Borghi più belli d'Italia

The numbers

Elevation: 548 m
Population: 4,449
Surface area: 263.47 km²

On the map

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These figures were compiled from public directories — ISTAT, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata — and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

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