Mauro Balletti

Belletti is particularly known for his work with Italian singer Mina. Mina met Belletti during the filming of a commercial for Tassoni, and knowing that he was an artist, she invited him to take some photos, thereby discovering a new talent in him.^[1]

A few months later, in 1973, Mina's albums Frutta e verdura/Amanti di valore, the author of the covers of which was Balletti.^[1] Some of Mina's album covers by his authorship have gained great fame (some of them are the result of collaboration with Gianni Ronco). In particular, the album cover of Attila was recognized as the best cover of the year and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York;^[2][3] while the album cover of Salomè (1981) with a "bearded" Mina, or Rane supreme, where Mina's face is photoshopped to the body of a bodybuilder, caused a lot of controversy.^[1] Balletti also actively used computer technology to create the covers. In 1992, he was the first to create a cover with a digital image, using a Mac computer.^[1][4] In the same year, he received the Italian Advertisers Award for the best image/packaging of the year (Sorelle Lumière album cover).^[5]

In 2016, Gianluigi Attorre and Katerina Mollica's special program Tra le immagini di Mina – L'arte di Mauro Balletti, dedicated to Balletti, was broadcast on Sky.^[6]

At the 2018 Sanremo Music Festival, Mina "appeared" as an avatar, a three-dimensional hologram previously featured on the cover of Gianni Ronco's Piccolino (2011), which was also created by Balletti.^[7]

In 2025, Mina released a music video "Senza farsi male", dedicated to Balletti, which also captures the artist's creative process.^[8]

Vogue Italia magazine stated that Balleti is "the only authorized emissary, the singular spokesman (although they are images) of a beloved national icon who for decades has been hiding in some far corner of the galaxy", created "richest and most transgressive series of album covers in the history of music".^[1]