Aliano

Aliano is a small town in Matera province, Basilicata, built atop calanchi — the deforested, clay "badlands" hills formed by wind and rain erosion that give this part of Lucania its stark, eroded landscape. The town is best known internationally as the setting of Carlo Levi's 1945 memoir "Christ Stopped at Eboli," which recounts Levi's 1935–36 internal exile here (and in nearby Grassano) under Mussolini's fascist government, when his anti-fascist activism led to his banishment to remote southern Italy. In the book Levi renamed the town Gagliano, based on its local pronunciation, and the title reflects a local expression that Christ, and with it Christianity, morality, and mainstream history, "stopped short" at Eboli in Campania — the point where road and rail to Basilicata branched away from the coastal routes — leaving places like Aliano feeling excluded from it.

Levi died in 1975 and, per his wishes, is buried in Aliano, where his memory and literary legacy remain closely tied to the town's identity today and continue to draw visitors to this otherwise remote part of the region. The town also suffered damage in the 1980 Irpinia earthquake.

Carlo Levi's tomb and the sites associated with his exile in Aliano — remembered locally under the fictional name Gagliano from "Christ Stopped at Eboli" — are the town's principal points of interest, along with the surrounding calanchi badlands landscape itself.

Walking the calanchi landscape and following the Carlo Levi literary trail through the town are the main activities associated with Aliano.

Aliano lies in the calanchi hill country of Matera province, near Grassano, the other town where Carlo Levi spent part of his exile.