Putto of Ilaria del Carretto, sculpted by Jacopo della Quercia in Lucca). Since then, Donatello has been called the originator of the putto because of the contribution to art he made in restoring the classical form of putto. He gave putto a distinct character by infusing the form with Christian meanings and using it in new contexts such as musician angels. Putti also began to feature in works showing figures from classical mythology, which became popular in the same period. Most Renaissance putti are essentially decorative and they ornament both religious and secular works, without usually taking any actual part in
Plural form of words ending in -us etymologically Greek despite its Latinized ending, and so pluralizing it as if it were Latin (i.e. as "platypi") is ill-considered. As with "octopus", importing Greek morphology into English would have "platypodes" as the plural, but in practice this form is hardly attested outside of discussions about pluralization. In scientific contexts, biologists often use "platypus" as both the singular and plural form of the word, in the tradition of "sheep" or "fish", but laypersons and scientists alike often use the simple English plural "platypuses". Different dictionaries make different recommendations. As a word in Botanical Latin (as distinct from Classical Latin), "cactus"