The portal of the church of Santa Maria carries a carved date, 1525, and the forms are still late Gothic: inland in Basilicata the Gothic repertoire held on well into the sixteenth century. To stand in front of it you have to climb to the summit of Monte Siri, above a town that already sits at 1008 m and is the third highest in the region after Pietrapertosa and Marsicovetere. The church did not arrive on an empty height: on the same summit are the remains of a castle built in 1091.
What to see
Inside are the frescoes of Todisco, sixteenth century. Portal and paintings therefore belong to the same season: within a few metres you have in front of you the stone dated 1525 and colours that were its contemporaries, or barely later.
The rest is the summit itself. The castle ruins of 1091 are a few steps away and, since 2008, a planetarium with an astronomical observatory has been working up there, run by the Teerum Valgemon Aesai volunteer association: castle, church and telescope share the same high point of Anzi.
Visiting
You climb from the town, and the climb is the longest part of the visit: allow for the height gain and wear proper shoes, because above the 1008 m of Anzi the mountain keeps going. On the way down you pass the Romanesque-Gothic church of Santa Lucia, which keeps a medieval stoup, and the two stops sit well in one loop. For the planetarium and for opening times, the association is the contact.
Our editors' tip
Ask Teerum Valgemon Aesai to line your climb up with an evening of sky observation: look at the frescoes in daylight, then stay up there until dark, on the same ridge where a fortress was being built in 1091.