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The province of Basilicata has historically been a poor place, so much so that only a few years ago residents of neighboring lowland Puglia- themselves none too affluent- customarily referred to their country cousins as indiani, “Indians.”

The adjective, meant to evoke the poverty of Calcutta and Pine Ridge alike, does not well fit much of Basilicata today. Far from being the bestial backwater of Carlo Levi’s famed memoir Christ Stopped at Eboli, most of the province has, in just the last twenty-odd years, become a garden for the European Union: where individual farmers worked a few meters of stony soil to produce enough olives, tomatoes, and peppers to see their families through the winter, the volcanic hillsides are now carpeted with vast mechanically harvested fields of vegetables and grains, and the province is strangely awash in lire.

But not in other currencies. Basilicata still lies far outside the usual tourist orbit, which means that should you visit, you will have the province pretty much to yourself. It also means, in the little town of Venosa, that you will draw an audience of curious onlookers wondering why on earth anyone would have chosen to negotiate the steep roads leading to their hilltop town.

There are, as it happens, good reasons to travel to Venosa, especially if you have an interest in history. The town is famed for being the birthplace of the Roman poet Horace, who left it in about 50 B.C. A Gatsby for his time, he scarcely looked back at the rustic place then called Venusia, city of Venus, joined to Rome by the ancient via Appia, the traces of which can be seen in the fields north and west of town. As if to avenge their slighted ancestors, whom Horace considered to be bumpkins, the Venosini of today honor the poet only with a bronze, dove-bespattered statue in the main piazza. And this despite the fact that much of the town’s present air of well-ordered prosperity owes to a series of government grants intended to mark the two-thousandth anniversary of the poet’s death, grants that the townspeople apparently decided, and quite reasonably, would better serve the living.

After Horace’s time, wealthy Roman absentee landowners erected a sprawling bath and resort complex, complete with a large amphitheater, on a finger of plateau below the southern approach to the modern town. The ruins of this structure are among the best-preserved in the region, and they are now protected as an archaeological park. Adjoining them are the ruins of the Abbey of the Holy Trinity, built by Benedictine monks in A.D. 1046 on the site of a Roman temple. Within the restored nave lies the tomb of the Norman crusader Robert Giscard, in which his remains were brought back to Venosa after his death on Cephalonia, as well as the tomb of his unfortunate half-brother Drogo, whose death, it is said, Robert arranged. Among the ruins are also bas-relief stones depicting menorahs and stars of David, in quiet acknowledgment of the long Jewish presence in the town. (Many Venosini, though their ancestors converted to Christianity generations ago, continue to observe Jewish customs and holidays.) Jewish and early Christian catacombs, which local legend holds stretch all the way to Rome, lie in limestone caves about two hundred feet south of the church. You do not need a guide to visit these catacombs; suffice it to say that some of the people you’ll encounter hereabout are residents of the local mental hospital, and that the caves themselves are full of harmless but alarm-inducing bats.

History is not the only reason to spend time in Venosa. It makes a convenient base of operations for day trips to Monte Vulture, an extinct volcano in whose bowl stand the crystalline pools of the Laghi di Monticchio; to the subprovincial capital of Matera, where postmodern homes are now being built in caves inhabited since Neolithic times; and to the Gravine di Puglia, narrow stream-laced canyons haunted by wolves, falcons, and vipers, wild places that recall the ancient Mediterranean better than any ruin.

A city of about twelve thousand inhabitants, Venosa has few hotels, among them the lovely, modern Hotel Orazio (via Vittorio Emanuele 142; tel. +39 0972 31 135). The city also has a fine new restaurant, Il Grifo (via del Fornac 21, +39 0972 35 975), in the center of town, alongside Venosa’s small Norman castle. The chef, recently returned to his hometown after twenty years of working in Rome, does wonders with local produce and game. Put your fate in his hands by telling the waiter, Cosa raccomanda voi, “whatever you recommend.” Gastronomic marvels will ensue.

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