Some oligo- or polyamides containing several hydroxyl groups were synthesized in order to obtain new water-soluble compounds with a high affinity for polar materials as wood, paper, and natural fibers. The interest for the synthetic procedures is the use of renewable sources as starting compounds. In fact natural compounds or their derivatives, as l-tartaric acid, d(+)-glucaric acid and a,a-trehaluronic acid, were used as dicarboxylic acids in the polycondensation reactions, in order to obtain several functionalized oligoamides. All the compounds obtained in this study were characterized through FTIR and NMR spectroscopy. The oligoamides, water-soluble and not provided with high-molecular weights, were tested as wood consolidants. Physical properties like hygroscopicity of stabilized wood, volume shrinkage, density, and basic density were evaluated on the treated samples and compared with those obtained in the same conditions for an untreated archeological sample and a recent wood sample. (C) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2012