Word: amoretti
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...angelic being radiates more effortless authority than the mosaic cherub in St. Mark's in Venice, unfurling his blue wings against a blaze of gold mosaic. In the general humanization of angels during the Renaissance, the cherub's presence quickly succumbed. He became crossed with the amoretti, or baby cupids, of antiquity; the result, a tumbling, rosy piglet of an angel, did not (even in Rubens' hands) quite make up in charm what it had lost in austere dignity. The path to the winged brat on the Christmas card was open...