AA.VV.

Ave color vini clari / ave sapor sine pari / tua nos inebriari…” All the qualities and merits of vine and wine find constant appreciation in the whole history of music and Renaissance times make no exception. Both in ecclesiastical and secular domain, both in educated and popular music, we cannot avoid pointing out the great attention paid to the subject: manuscripts abound in songs and dances dedicated to the celebration of pleasures and virtues of wine.Testimonies come from amanuensis and printing-works from all over Europe and stress the wide propagation of a beverage which loses his own significance and acquires symbolic values. In the secular environment, wine is the source of joy and amusement, dispenser of elation, of toasts sung by cheerful companies; wine is always present on noblemen’s tables and it can be a present on occasion of embassies; in the ecclesiastical environment, wine has got his own specific value, the biggest one can imagine: the transubstantiation of wine into Christ’s blood during Eucharist. For this reason, we symbolically embraced this feast through melismas of Gregorian songs, which are constant reference within Renaissance music. The truly amusing and suggesting programme, is proposed by a group of musicians playing early instruments through executive styles of that period and proposes famous pieces of music and songs on “wine” during XV and XVI centuries.