Campomaggiore, the town of Utopia at the end of the 18th century

We are just over 800 metres above sea level, with the landscape of the Lucanian Dolomites and the woods of the Gallipoli Cognato Park as an ideal backdrop and a tranquillity in the air that invites us to stop. The 'new' village of Campomaggiore, with its ordered chessboard structure, is in itself a very precise testimony to the history of this place, but it is not far away, among the ruins of Campomaggiore Vecchio, that its deepest meaning is grasped. Founded in 1741 by the Rendina family, what came to be known as 'the city of utopia' (the multimedia museum of the same name reconstructs the story in a language accessible to all) was born as an experiment in town planning and social equity made up of houses that were all the same, wide, straight streets and a central square conceived as a collective space. In the space of a few decades, the village became an important agricultural centre and remained so until 1985, when a landslide decreed its end: today one walks among the ruins of the original village, observing what remains of the Casino della Contessa, the Counts' summer residence, the Wine Workshop and the Masseria Cutinelli Rendina with its ancient oil mill. In the contemporary village, murals and scattered sculptures narrate scenes of life and artistic interpretations of the territory, but the real plunge into the past is experienced during the summer with "Rivivi la Città dell'Utopia", a festival that animates the ancient village with events and re-enactments dedicated to the original idea of community.