Venus on the Half-Shell assumed that Vonnegut wrote the book. This problem was solved by the book being reprinted under Farmer's by-line. A common element to this novel is the origin of many of the characters' and locations' names. Farmer "put in a lot of references to literature and fictional authors... Most of the alien names in Venus were formed by transposing the letters of English or non-English words." The title and paperback cover art are a reference to an Italian Renaissance tempera painting by Sandro Botticelli, "The Birth of Venus", which depicts the birth of the goddess Venus as her rising from the
Madonna and Child and Two Angels (Botticelli) or two earlier. <BR> Madonna and Child and Two Angels (Botticelli) The Madonna and Child with Two Angels is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, dating to c. 1468-1469. It is now in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, in Naples. The work was once attributed to Filippino Lippi, master of Botticelli. The composition essentially derives from Botticelli's master (and Filippino Lippi's father) Filippo Lippi. The faces and other details suggest around the same period of the "Fortitude" and the other juvenile Madonnas of the Italian painter. The composition is similar to Verrocchio's "Madonna of the Milk", probably