Casa Museo Colibri: naïf painter Bruno Bricoli's home museum in the Apennines

In the remote hamlet of Urzano in the Parma Apennines, the Casa Museo Colibri has been open since 2011, preserving the home and studio of Bruno Bricoli (1926–1996), a self-taught painter who signed his works as Colibri. A former professor of political economy at the University of Parma, Bricoli began painting at age 44, seeking freedom from his daily life. His pseudonym is an anagram of his surname. The museum, part of the Emilia-Romagna network of houses and studies of illustrious people, displays numerous works alongside original furnishings and his atelier, left as it was in 1996. His last unfinished painting, 'Tribuno,' remains on the easel. Bricoli's style is defined as naïf but rooted in refined culture and international openness, with a strong connection to France. Recurring iconographic elements include bare black trees, snow-covered landscapes, and always a blue sky mixed from Prussian blue and titanium white. His subjects are laborers with oversized hands and feet, weary faces, and recognizable figures like Don Quixote, Garibaldi, Emilio Vedova, and characters from Fellini. Roosters, inspired by Antonio Ligabue, appear frequently. The museum offers an immersion into his colorful yet tragic universe.