Putto - cherub - cupid - amoretto - amorino

The nouns putto, cherub, cupid, amoretto, and amorino are all used, particularly in the description of Renaissance and Baroque paintings and sculpture, to refer to the figure of a chubby babyish boy. However, the words are not identical in meaning and are not all used in the same way.

The word putto (plural putti), which comes from Italian and originally from the Latin putus (‘boy’), refers simply to the basic appearance of the figure, viz., to its being a chubby babyish boy. It is neutral with regard to what the figure represents and neutral, therefore, with respect to the details of its appearance, which might serve to answer that question. So putti may be clothed or naked, winged or wingless, empty-handed or holding a bow and arrow, etc.

Putti in Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture may represent at least two different types of non-human or ‘heavenly’ beings:

cherubim, a type of angel referred to in the Bible – see, e.g., Ezekiel ch. 1, vv. 4-14; ch. 10; and Hebrews ch. 9, v. 5; and

cupids, who are said in Roman mythology to be the servants of Cupid (in Latin Cupido), the son of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and to fly about the world on the orders of their master armed with a bow and arrow, causing those whom they wound with one of their arrows to fall helplessly in love.

Amoretto and amorino are Italian words (with plurals, respectively, amoretti and amorini), diminutive forms of the noun amore (‘love’). (The Roman god Cupido was sometimes referred to in Latin as Amor (‘Love’).) They are alternative ways of referring to cupids, making explicit that their function is to cause humans to fall in love.

Whether a particular putto is a cherub (or other type of angel) or a cupid (or amoretto or amorino) will often be determined by the details of its appearance (e.g., whether or not it is holding a bow and arrow); and/or by the subject of the painting or sculpture of which it is a part, e.g., if a painting is of a scene from classical mythology, the putti must be cupids and not cherubim, while if it represents an episode in the life of a Christian saint the putti must be cherubim, not cupids.