Franz Freiherr Gaudy, Donna Venere

Frau Venus is the seventh of the fifteen Venetianische Novellen (1838), of which only some are set in Venice. In the introduction which precedes them, Gaudy praises the Queen of the seas in ritualistic rhetoric. Venus, as a goddess, left the earth a long time ago, but the traces of her presence can in no way be eliminated. The archetype of feminine beauty, set in ancestral memory, has allowed itself to be distorted rather than die, by assuming appearances which are at times demoniacal, fascinating, haunting, or elusive. The novella goes back to the first version of the tale of a Statuenverlobung (betrothal to a statue) which dates back to 1124-1125 and is included in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum. In Gaudy’s Donna Venere traces of the legend of the Mount of Venus and of alchemical elements are also found.