play musical instruments around the Virgin Mary, one of them playing a cylindrical recorder. Starting in the Middle Ages, angels have frequently been depicted playing one or more recorders, often grouped around the Virgin, and in several notable paintings, trios of angels play recorders. This is perhaps a sign of the trinity, although the music must have often been in three parts. Repertoire No music marked for the recorder survives from prior to 1500. Groups of recorder players or recorder playing angels, particularly trios, are depicted in paintings from the fifteenth century, indicating the recorder was used in these configurations, as well as with other instruments. Some of the earliest music must have been vocal repertory. Modern recorder players have taken up the practice of playing instrumental music from the period, perhaps anachronistically, such as the monophonic estampies from the Chansonnier du Roi (thirteenth century), Add MS 29987 (fourteenth or fifteenth), or the Codex Faenza (fifteenth), and have arranged keyboard music, such as the estampies from the Robertsbridge codex (fourteenth), or the vocal works of composers such as Guillaume de Machaut and Johannes Ciconia for recorder ensembles. Renaissance In the sixteenth century, the structure, repertoire, and performing practice of the recorder is better documented than in prior epochs. The recorder was one of the most important wind instruments of the Renaissance, and many instruments dating to the sixteenth century survive, including some matched consorts. This period also produced the first extant books describing the recorder, including the treatises of Virdung (1511), Agricola (1529), Ganassi (1535), Cardano (c.1546), Jambe de Fer (1556), and Praetorius (1619). Nonetheless, understanding of the instrument and its practice in this period is still developing. Structure In the sixteenth century, the recorder saw important developments in its structure. As in the recorders of the Middle Ages, the etiology of these changes remains uncertain, development was regional and multiple types of recorder existed simultaneously. Our knowledge is based on documentary sources and surviving instruments. Surviving instruments Far more recorders survive from the Renaissance than from the Middle Ages. Most of the surviving instruments from the period have a wide, cylindrical bore from the blockline to the uppermost fingerhole, an inverted conical portion down to around the lowest finger hole (the "choke"), then a slight flare to the bell. Externally, they have a curved shape similar to the bore, with a profile like a stretched hourglass. Their sound is