In 1989, the prominent writer and art critic, Giovanni Testori, introduced to the milieu of Milan’s galleries the artist Sergio Battarola, an unknown, penniless painter whom he had discovered in the Lower Bergamo area a few years earlier. The artist who, up till then had never had one single customer, suddenly found himself adopted like a son by the most highly-respected author of the time who had, moreover, purchased en bloc more than one hundred of his drawings, paid for the catalogue and organized his first one-man show. Sergio’s expectations were those of anyone making a successful debut. But, twenty years on, things have not exactly worked out…