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If I were a bat, I'd like to live in Matera. I'd hang from the ceilings of the cave dwellings, fly around the labyrinth of light-starved stone passages, and feed on insects. But as I'm human, living in Matera would be like living in Hell.

Since the sixth century, the citizens of this lonely southern Italian city have been troglodytes. They have wandered out into the fierce sun to shepherd and sow wheat for their pasta, and retreated into their cave dwellings at night. Darkness was their natural state, and blinded Santa Lucia their patron saint.

Then, in the 1960s, this unique way of life suddenly came to an end. Local politicians decreed that it was unsanitary to live in a cave, and the poor people of the sassi (simply 'rocks' in Italian), were to be provided with decent, modern housing in apartment blocks on the edge of town. The police moved in and forcibly evicted 20,000. The streets were littered with their few belongings - crude cooking utensils, iron bedsteads and blankets. There were riots in the snaking, narrow lanes, where only a Fiat 126 can pass.

Thirty years later, the cave city of Matera still stands on the ravine over the River Gravina, a dinosaurian pile the colour of the sandy earth. It is an astounding architectural monument, rising like a crusty castle from a plain broken by deep, dramatic gorges. Matera's disturbing beauty and its setting in the very centre of Italy's foot, is perhaps why the city has a sense of intense desolation. Conrad, a young materani, sums up his home city: 'Matera is very alone.'

Today, many of the doorways to the caves have been cemented up to prevent the former inhabitants returning. But it is still possible to walk out of the sunlight in through one of the rough, rhombus-shaped doorways, like trespassing in Hades. This is spontaneous architecture, and everything is irregular, from the wavy stone floors to the curved, whitewashed walls. The ceilings are high at one point, low at another, and sometimes to reach another room you have to crawl along a fetid tunnel.

It is difficult to understand why the cave dwellers fought so hard for their homes. In the summer, they are as hot as hell; in the winter, bitterly cold. The walls sweat with bacteria. Conrad warned me not to descend any further along the stone steps into the warren of rooms which descend, storey by storey, down into the rock, each one deeper and darker than the chamber before. Matera was a disease-ridden city - malaria was rife - and Conrad believes the bacteria still breed on the damp walls.

The cave dwellers shared their homes with their animals - dogs, cows, sheep and horses - and kept hens under their high iron bedsteads for fresh eggs each morning. They were devout people, and there are over 130 churches cut out of the rock- Madonna della Croce, Madonna delle Virtu, Santa Maria de Idris, Santa Maria della Valle . . . For columns, they have intricately carved stalagmites and stalactites and, though the walls are rough, they are painted with Byzantine frescoes.

The streets have no names and the homes no numbers. But an occasional freshly painted door and shiny brass plaque boasts a new occupant. The caves of Matera are being gentrified. UNESCO has declared the city a world heritage site, and an artisan can purchase a cave dwelling on the condition that renovation work is carried out. So far, only a few have succumbed to the temptation of having a Byzantine fresco in their front room, as for neighbours they have bats and rats.

For the majority of young Materani, the ancient way of life is to be admired rather than emulated. Conrad is not staying in this desolate town. He's moving to Italy's northern coast, where there are prospects and jobs. Matera, he says seriously, 'is not very futurable. How could you put a television in this house? You can't get cars into the ancient town! Today, I cannot live in a cave.'

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