VINALIA. – This name designates two festivals in the most ancient calendar of the Roman religion.
The literary sources distinguish between them, defining that of 23 Apr. as V. priora and that of 19 Aug. as V. rustica. The former was connected with the first tasting of the new wine, the latter with the inauguration of the grape harvest by the flamen Dialis, priest of Jupiter. Both festivals are in fact shown as dedicated to Jupiter, although the fact that not only the tradition concerning a connection between them and Venus, but also the most ancient temples of this goddess in Rome, have their dedication day precisely on the two V., does not seem without significance.
BIBL.: W. Warde Fowler, Roman festivals, London 1899, p. 85 ff., 204 ff.; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, II, Munich 1912, p. 115; F. Bömer, in Rheinisches Museum, 90 (1941), p. 30 ff. Angelo Brelich