It is easy to fall in love with the various wind ensembles I have discussed--from the musically challenged but politically important trombetti, to the loud dance band pifarri, to the pifarri ensemble that inspired Giovanni Gabrieli to use the first ever instrumentation. The images involved can be very beautiful, such as the fanfares played across the Tiber when a Cardinal crossed, or amusing as the silver trumpets that were so long they required a second person to hold up their end, or breathtaking as ninety-two trumpeter at the wedding of Alfonso d'Este and Anna Maria Sforza. These ensembles were dynamic forces and vital parts of the lives of the communities in which they lived and played. A festival could not be held without them!
I have come to love these ensembles. If there is one thing I could wish, however, it would be for a serious scholarly study specifically of the ensembles of Renaissance Italy to be published. These ensembles, and other ensembles I have not studied, deserve more attention and research by those in a position to do them justice. My work is based on the secondary work of others, and I strongly hope that one of those "others" might focus more closely on the ensembles that were so interesting and influential.
That said, I leave you with one of my favorite images of the pifarri, specifically the shawm and trombone ensemble, which performed in 1468 for the wedding of the Duke of Burgundy to Margaret of York. Olivier de la Marche records that, ". . .the music included a motet played by the hauts menestrels with trompette-saicqueboute, and three shawms, disguised as goats." BI, p. 108 Any ensemble in which the players can be disguised as goats is an ensemble worth knowing more about!