¹ “He whose eyes have looked on beauty is a prey of death already” – from the poem “Tristan” by August von Platen, a poet obliquely mentioned in Mann’s novella.

² Erich Heller’s book The Ironic German is invaluable for any student of Mann. His essay “Autobiography and Art,” included in the Modern Library College edition of Death in Venice, discusses many points of relation between Mann himself, Mahler, Wagner, Goethe and the fictional Aschenbach.

³ One of the most striking uses of this device in Visconti’s films is the incident in Senso where the countess shelters her lover all night with his head in her arms, and her face appears to grow younger as dawn approaches. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith mentions how the “ghouls of naturalism” took offense at this, and he rightly mentions the parallel to Michaelangelo’s Pièta, where the Virgin’s youth is a reflection of her purity.

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