Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia in Basilicata
9 towns
Basilicata carries 9 of the Borghi più belli d'Italia towns we cover. They cluster in the Potenza and Matera provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Acerenza, Castelmezzano, and Miglionico. 6 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
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.
Castelmezzano
Province: Potenza · 750 m
A medieval village wedged into sandstone teeth at 750 meters, linked to Pietrapertosa by a 1,452-meter zipline since 2007.
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.
Guardia Perticara
Province: Potenza · 678 m
The stone village at 678 meters above the Sauro valley, rebuilt block by block in Gorgoglione sandstone after the 1980 earthquake.
Maratea
Province: Potenza · 300 m
Basilicata's only commune on the Tyrrhenian, thirty-two kilometers of rocky coast overlooked by a marble Christ raised inland in 1965.
Pietrapertosa
Province: Potenza · 1,088 m
Basilicata's highest commune at 1,088 meters, built into the Lucanian Dolomites with a Saracen rock-cut fortress and a 1,400-meter zipline to Castelmezzano.
Rivello
Province: Potenza · 479 m
A 479-meter ridge above the Noce valley where Lombards and Byzantines lived side by side, holding Latin and Greek rites until the seventeenth century.
Venosa
Province: Potenza · 415 m
Founded as Roman Venusia in 291 BC, birthplace of Horace, with an unfinished abbey built from amphitheater stones and a 1470 Aragonese castle.
Irsina
Province: Matera · 548 m
A 548-meter Bradano-valley hill town, called Montepeloso until 1895, whose cathedral holds a Renaissance rarity.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Campi Salentina
Province: Lecce
A Salento plain town fifteen kilometers north of Lecce, rebuilt after the Saracen raids of 926 and later raised to a marquisate.
Loreto Aprutino
Province: Pescara
A hilltop town at 290 meters in the Aprutino olive country, with a fourteenth-century Judgment fresco and a Castelli majolica collection.
Ascea
Province: Salerno
Two villages, a hilltown at 230 meters and a Cilento marina, with Parmenides and Zeno's Eleatic school in the ruins of Greek Velia below.
Vico del Gargano
Province: Foggia
A Gargano hill town at 445 meters where a Norman castle, a kiss alley, and DOP citrus terraces step down toward the Adriatic.
Mantova
Province: Mantova
A Gonzaga capital at 19 meters, encircled on three sides by lakes the Mincio formed in the twelfth century, UNESCO-listed together with Sabbioneta since 2008.