Born in the bucolic town of Lodi in northern Italy—home to medieval castles and cathedrals and a landscape carved by the waters of the Po River—Bianca Balti is an Italian flower plucked from the dreams of all men. The blue-eyed beauty was discovered in a supermarket at the age of 20 and, eager to share herself with the world, immediately left the countryside for brighter lights. “Lodi was too quiet for me,” she says. “I went to Milan as soon as I was able.” She has since walked the runway for Chanel, done print campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Dior, appeared in the pages of Vogue Italiaand, at last, posed for playboy. “There is no value in not showing my body,” she says. “A naked body is a beautiful thing. Even God thinks so. When I’m naked, I feel angelic.” We photographed Bianca in a remote area of Malibu against a majestic backdrop of mountains and sea, a worthy paradise that encapsulates the peace and serenity she identifies as the root of happiness. “When I was a child, my dreams were always of the water, the sand, the beach,” she says, “but I’ve learned to be a soldier of life, to accept the unexpected, to fight and grow.” Marked by the passion and romanticism that have defined the women of her country for centuries, Bianca speaks about love unabashedly. “The real value of my body is that I truly give it only to the man in my life,” she says. “A man who makes me feel loved and respected, who lets me dream in his arms and the warmth of my own bed, who makes me feel sexy and thus confident, and who knows only he can make me feel that way.”
