Venus was born of the foam on the sea when the genitals of the castrated Saturn were thrown into it. She is best known as the goddess of beauty, but she also represented fertility. She is the Roman goddess corresponding to the Greek Aphrodite, whose name possibly derives from the Greek “aphros”, meaning foam. The birth of Venus is at the centre of Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio’s print, in which Venus is portrayed standing on a large shell. The Greek poet Hesiod (ca. 700 BC) wrote in his Theogony that after the birth the winds drove her on a shell to Cyprus. Beside Venus, we see Cupid, her son. He can be recognised by the fact that he is holding one of the arrows that awaken love when they strike.
