Cripta del Peccato Originale (Crypt of the Original Sin), Matera (must see)

One day, shepherds wandering by the Gravina River discovered a crypt in the rocky wall. It became the Crypt of Original Sin, also called the Crypt of the Hundred Saints, for the many frescoes inside. Some call it the Church of "The Flower Painter" for the red cistus blooms at the base of the frescoes.

The red flowers are frequent on the Murgia Plateau. They bloom only for a day, symbolizing the brevity of human life. The Church of the Original Sin is a precious jewel of southern Italian rock art. The monastic walls have a pictorial cycle of painted frescoes showing a style prevalent in the 8th to 10th centuries AD.

The cycle is expressed in two phases. The first phase has images from the Old and New Testaments painted on the back wall. On the wall are the three foremost angels, Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, accompanied by Saints Peter, John, and Andrew. The Madonna, in royal attire, is in a central niche. The impression is Byzantine.

At the foot of the wall, viewed from left to right, a deacon washes the hands of a bishop. To the right of this are the three moments of Genesis. First, the Lord creates light. Second is the Darkness. Lastly is the creation of Adam and Eve, with Eve making her classic entrance from Adam's rib. Next to the happy couple is the Tree of Evil.

The snake writhes around the trunk of the Tree of Evil while Eve proffers the forbidden fruit to her gullible mate. Here a dichotomy arises. The forbidden fruit is a fig, not an apple. The humans are hiding their private parts with fig leaves. Over time the sinful apple surpassed the sinful fig, but the fig came first.

One explanation for the apple's ultimate popularity as an evil fruit is that figs were not well-known in Northern Europe. Evil as a fig is shown in only five churches in Italy, including the Sistine Chapel in Rome.