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
Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Botticelli, Munich) Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Botticelli, Munich) The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, is a painting of the common subject of the Lamentation of Christ by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, finished around 1490-1492. It is now in the Alte Pinakothek, in Munich. The portrait shows the inert body of Christ surrounded by the Virgin, St. Peter, and Mary Magdalene, St. John the Evangelist, St. Jerome and St. Paul. The pathetic expressions of the characters were a novelty in Botticelli's art: under the spiritual influence of Savonarola's preachings in Florence, which began around the time the work was executed,