Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Lore & Background

Born in the town of Palestrina in the Papal States, Palestrina moved to Rome as a child and underwent musical studies there. In 1551, Pope Julius III appointed him maestro di cappella of the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter's Basilica.

He left the post four years later, unable to continue as a layman under the papacy of Paul IV, and held similar positions at St. John Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore in the following decade. Palestrina returned to the Cappella Giulia in 1571 and remained at St Peter's until his death in 1594. Primarily known for his masses and motets, which number over 105 and 250 respectively, Palestrina had a long-lasting influence on the development of church and secular music in Europe, especially on the development of counterpoint.

A Life Built Around Rome's Sacred Chapels

Giovanni Pierluigi was born in the small town of Palestrina, east of Rome and within the Papal States, to Neapolitan parents Santo and Palma Pierluigi. Though he spent 1544 to 1551 as organist at the Cathedral of St. Agapito in his hometown, his professional identity was forged in Rome, where he trained under the Huguenot Claude Goudimel, Robin Mallapert, and Firmin Lebel after serving as a chorister at Santa Maria Maggiore. In 1551, Pope Julius III elevated him to maestro di cappella of the Cappella Giulia, the chapter choir at St. Peter's Basilica.

That appointment was cut short in 1555 when Paul IV decreed all papal choristers must be clerical—a rule incompatible with Palestrina's status as a married man with four children. He then held comparable posts at St. John Lateran (1555–1560) and Santa Maria Maggiore (1561–1566). In 1571 he returned to the Julian Chapel and stayed at St. Peter's for the remaining twenty-three years of his life, anchoring his career to Rome's most prestigious musical institution.

A Vast Catalog and the Sacred-Secular Question

Palestrina's surviving output is immense: over 105 masses, more than 300 motets, 68 offertories, at least 140 madrigals, 72 hymns, 35 magnificats, 11 litanies, and several sets of lamentations. His first published book of Masses in 1554 was a milestone as the first by a native Italian composer, and its frontispiece woodcut was nearly a direct copy of one from Cristóbal de Morales's earlier volume. His relationship with secular music was deliberately ambivalent.

In the 1584 preface to his Canticum canticorum motet collection he declared he had renounced setting profane texts, yet only two years later he released Book II of his secular madrigals, some of which rank among the finest in the medium. In total he issued just two collections of profane madrigals (1555 and 1586); the other two were spiritual madrigals favored by Counter-Reformation advocates. His Missa sine nomine later drew the close attention of Johann Sebastian Bach, who studied and performed it while writing the Mass in B minor.

The Palestrinian Style and Enduring Influence

Palestrina is one of the rare Renaissance composers never wholly erased from musical memory, yet his deepest impact flowed less from any individual piece than from the so-called Palestrinian style of counterpoint, especially as codified by Johann Joseph Fux in his theoretical writings. Together with Orlande de Lassus and Tomás Luis de Victoria, he is regarded as the leading voice of late sixteenth-century European composition and the central figure of the Roman School.

His compositional voice was shaped by the Netherlandish polyphonic tradition that dominated Italy through Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, with Orlando di Lasso serving as an early stylistic adviser. Grove Music Online credits him with reconciling the functional and aesthetic demands of post-Tridentine Catholic church music, earning him a lasting reputation as the ideal Catholic composer and granting his style an iconic stature as a model of perfect achievement. His disciples Giovanni Maria Nanino and Gregorio Allegri carried his school forward, and the Gloria melody from his Magnificat Tertii Toni (1591) still lives on in the resurrection hymn tune Victory (The Strife Is O'er).

Grief, Remarriage, and a Lost Grave

Beneath the monumental output lay a personal life repeatedly shattered by loss. His mother Palma died when he was ten, and the 1570s brought three separate plague outbreaks that claimed his brother in 1572, two of his sons in 1575, and his first wife Lucrezia Gori in 1580. During that dark decade he reportedly considered taking holy orders, but instead he remarried to the wealthy widow Virginia Dormoli. That second union finally provided the financial independence he had never enjoyed as a modestly compensated choirmaster, and it freed him to compose prolifically until the end.

He died of pleurisy in Rome on 2 February 1594 and was buried that very day beneath the floor of St. Peter's Basilica in a plain coffin bearing the inscription Ioannes Petrus Aloysius Praenestinus Musicæ Princeps. A five-part Libera me Domine psalm for three choirs accompanied the funeral service. Subsequent construction covered his burial spot, and no effort since has succeeded in locating his grave.

Reader's Guide

Palestrina left hundreds of compositions, including 105 masses, 68 offertories, at least 140 madrigals and more than 300 motets. In addition, there are at least 72 hymns, 35 magnificats, 11 litanies, and four or five sets of lamentations. The Gloria melody from Palestrina's Magnificat Tertii Toni (1591) is widely used today in the resurrection hymn tune, Victory (The Strife Is O'er).

His attitude toward madrigals was somewhat enigmatic: whereas in the preface to his collection of Canticum canticorum (Song of Songs) motets (1584) he renounced the setting of profane texts, only two years later he was back in print with Book II of his secular madrigals. He published just two collections of madrigals with profane texts, one in 1555 and another in 1586. The other two collections were spiritual madrigals.

Did You Know?

• His mother died on 16 January 1536, when Palestrina was ten.