The co-author of the music is composer Nicola Piovani, who later won an Academy Award for his soundtrack for Roberto Benigni's Life is beautiful.

In an interview excerpt included within the eighth and last DVD (Poesia in forma di canzone - "Poetry as songs") of the 2011 eight-disc documentary series Dentro Faber (i.e.

Inside Faber, about his life and works), De André stated that most of the songs on the album were either too poetical, something which the singer-songwriter felt would not translate well in a live context, or too musically complex to play live; he cited "Un ottico" as an example of the latter, as that song features four sections in different tempos and includes overlapping vocals (originally recorded by De André singing the same lines twice, with a heavy delay effect), displaying a progressive rock influence.

The artwork for the original album, created by advertising designer Deanna Galletto, is a drawing of an orange box floating in a blue sky with smoke-like clouds.

The artwork for Morgan's 2005 remake, created by the design company MoltiMedia.it with contributions from Morgan himself, and referred to by the musician, in the visual (DVD) section of the album's DualDisc release, as "a deferential parody", is a photo of an actual orange wooden box, glued to the right side of an old wall in a house; the wall is painted in a sky-blue colour, with several areas of paint having fallen off to reveal a grayish tint, and puffs of white smoke rise up from below.