The area of Corneto where the Bandita hermitage stands is Etruscan land and it is likely that where the monastery now stands there were pre-existing settlements dating back to one of the oldest pre-Roman Italic civilisations. The laying of the foundation stone of the present building dates back to 1750 and was the work of St Paul of the Cross, a member of the order of Passionist friars. Before building the retreat in Tarquinia, St Paul of the Cross had already built two others, one on Mount Argentario and one on Mount Fogliano, above Cura di Vetralla. All three convents show similarities in layout and structure.
The account by Bruno Blasi, Matta's friend and mayor of Tarquinia during the years of the sale of the Bandita, describes in detail when the convent was born, how it was used over time, how it passed from the municipality to the hospital and how, thanks to Luisa Laureati, Matta's friend and gallery owner, it was purchased in 1968 by the artist then living in Boissy, who, having lived in Rome in the 1950s, was looking for a place near the capital where he could create his own refuge to live and work. Matta transformed this place with his imagination and his love of art.
After a laborious and careful restoration that preserved the essence of the place without ever distorting it, Matta brought an abandoned former convent back to life, making it a place of the soul. Just a stone's throw from the sea, surrounded by woods, orchards and olive groves, the Bandita retreat, now home to the Matta Archives, is an oasis in dreams, beauty and fantasy. In this corner of paradise, almost estranged from the world and yet so full of life, several of the artist's works are preserved, his extraordinary collection of primitive art, the rooms devoted to his work and the chapel where Matta, from the 1970s onwards, painted many canvases and in whose crypt he now rests with his wife Germana Ferrari. Matta said to Tito Amodei in 1974, welcoming him to the Bandita:
“You are privileged with the word passion, because after all it is life that is passionate, passionate and passionate. To speak of a passion, I say with a play on words, let us enter the passionists...”
Matta, dare alla vita una luce, Monografie a cura di Tito Amodei 3, Edizioni del Centro di Sperimentazione Artistica SALA 1, Roma, 1974.
La Bandita in the 1930s
La Bandita today