Grassano was built by the Knights of Malta, one of the clearest examples of a town made by the Order in Basilicata. Its commandery was the richest in the region: nineteen grancie, that is farms, scattered across half of Lucania depended on it. The commander was also baron of Grassano and ruled from the castle above the town until a law suppressed the Order in 1810.
Before that, the people of Grassano had tried to shake off Tricarico, which counted them as one of its hamlets: the matter went before the king of Naples, and on 19 January 1414 Ladislao settled it with the so-called sentence of the candle, finding for Tricarico. The mother church still has a working eighteenth-century organ and the old clock mechanism. There are 5,395 residents.
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📅 Every year, on 22 September
On 22 September Grassano celebrates Saint Innocent; for centuries the village was the seat of a Commandery of the Knights of Malta, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and Saint Mark, with jurisdiction over nineteen "grance" across Basilicata and the Terra di Bari.
Durum wheat semolina, thick crust, shaped as a horn or a tall loaf: Pane di Matera has held Protected Geographical Indication status since 2008.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Grassano, but an easy day trip away.
