(Vilminore, 1714 - Bergamo, 1775) Poets gloriously ascend Parnassus where the temple of Apollo rises Dated 1765 on the open book to the left of De tranquillitate animi Fresco applied on canvas, 225X370 cm. Provenance: Bergamo, Palazzo Marenzi formerly Romili Bibliography: F. M. Tassi, Vite de' pittori, scultori e architetti bergamaschi, Bergamo, Locatelli, 1793, p. 112 P. A. Brasi, Memoria storica intorno alla Valle Seriana superiore, Rovetta 1823, p. 83 G. Moratti, Raccolta di pittori che dipingereero in Bergamo e sua Provincia, Biblioteca Civica di Bergamo, ms. 1900, I, pp. 8-9 E. Fornoni, Dizionario Odeporico, Curia vescovile di Bergamo, ms. s.d. (ca. 1915-1920), I, pp. 25-26 E. Fornoni, Dizionario Odeporico, Curia vescovile di Bergamo, ms. s.d. (ca. 1920), XII, p. 11 C. Caversazzi, A bambocciata of literary inspiration in: Bergomum, Bergamo, December 1939, fasc. IV, pp. 216-219 M. A. Baroncelli, Faustino Bocchi and Enrico Albrici painters of bambocciate, Brescia 1965, pp. 70-72, fig. 43 B. Belotti, Storia di Bergamo e dei bergamaschi, Vol. 6, Bergamo 1989, p. 55. M. A. Baroncelli, in I Pittori Bergamaschi dal XII al XIX secolo, il Settecento III, Bergamo 1990, p. 192, n. 6, p. 240 M. Olivari, Faustino Bocchi e l'arte di figurar pigmei, Rome, Milan 1990, pp. 156-159, n. B7 V. Caprara, in Il Settecento Lombardo, exhibition catalog edited by Rossana Bossaglia and Valerio Terraroli, Milan 1991, p. 590 C. Tellini Perina, in Pittura a Bergamo dal Romanico al Neoclassicismo, edited by M. Gregori, Milan 1999, pp. 294-295, table 147 Dalle Accademie all'Ateneo: significances of a presence in the history of the city, edited by L. Pagani, Ranica 2001, p. 140 (cited) S. Turani, in Bergamo nobilissima. La decorazione profana nei palazzi dal Seicento all'Ottocento, edited by G. Carlo, F. Villa, C. Beltrami, F. Fracassi, S. Turani, Milan 2016, pp. 112-113 The work presented here is the artist's most famous and was made in 1765 to decorate the ceiling at the top of the staircase on the second piano nobile of the Palazzo dei conte Romili (now Marenzi) in Bergamo. The scene depicts a 'bambocciata of literary inspiration and subject,' with the most famous poets gloriously ascending Parnassus where the temple of Apollo stands and the Muses sojourn, one of whom drives the bad poets back down with a whip. It was probably Count Romili who pointed the painter to the subject, as Albricci's other works of literary inspiration commissioned from him would suggest. According to Caversazzi (Cf. Caversazzi 1939), the interpretation finds references to the coeval polemics of the periodicals Il Caffè, by Pietro Verri of Milan (published from June 1764 to May 1766) and the Frusta letteraria directed and written almost entirely by the Venetian Giuseppe Baretti under the pseudonym of Aristarco Scannabue who, published between 1763 and 1765, was a great success, especially because of the heated tones in which Baretti expressed his opinions towards numerous contemporary or past literati, certainly engaging the interest of Count Romili, whose cultural sensitivity is well known. That said, the coincidence between the creation of the fresco and the closing of the two journals is curious, suggesting the correct interpretation by Caversazzi, bearing in mind that discussions about the ongoing literary controversy were very much alive among intellectuals in Bergamo and humorously alluded to by Albricci in his tasty painting, 'one of the best things about that capricious artist' who invites everyone to calm by quoting Seneca.