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    Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an influential Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music. He was born near Rome in 1525 and spent most of his career working in churches and chapels in Rome, including as the musical director of the Julian Chapel at St. Peter's Basilica from 1551-1571. Palestrina had a significant influence on the development of church music and polyphony, helping to establish the Roman School style. He composed prolifically until his death in 1594 in Rome from pleurisy.

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    Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an influential Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music. He was born near Rome in 1525 and spent most of his career working in churches and chapels in Rome, including as the musical director of the Julian Chapel at St. Peter's Basilica from 1551-1571. Palestrina had a significant influence on the development of church music and polyphony, helping to establish the Roman School style. He composed prolifically until his death in 1594 in Rome from pleurisy.

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    Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina

    Uploaded by

    Sherryl Zamonte
    Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an influential Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music. He was born near Rome in 1525 and spent most of his career working in churches and chapels in Rome, including as the musical director of the Julian Chapel at St. Peter's Basilica from 1551-1571. Palestrina had a significant influence on the development of church music and polyphony, helping to establish the Roman School style. He composed prolifically until his death in 1594 in Rome from pleurisy.

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    Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

    Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525 – 2 February 1594) was an


    Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-
    century representative of the Roman School of musical composition. He
    had a lasting influence on the development of church music, and his work
    has often been seen as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony.

    Biography
    Palestrina was born in the town of Palestrina, near Rome, then part of the
    Papal States. Documents suggest that he first visited Rome in 1537, when
    he is listed as a chorister at the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica. He studied
    with Robin Mallapert and Firmin Lebel. He spent most of his career in the
    city.

    Palestrina came of age as a musician under the influence of the northern European style of polyphony,
    which owed its dominance in Italy primarily to two influential Netherlandish composers, Guillaume Dufay
    and Josquin des Prez, who had spent significant portions of their careers there. Italy itself had yet to produce
    anyone of comparable fame or skill in polyphony.

    From 1544 to 1551, Palestrina was organist of the cathedral of St. Agapito, the principal church of his native
    city. His first published compositions, a book of Masses, had made so favorable an impression with Pope
    Julius III (previously the Bishop of Palestrina) that in 1551 he appointed Palestrina maestro di cappella or
    musical director of the Cappella Giulia, (Julian Chapel, in the sense of choir), the choir of the chapter of
    canons at St. Peter's Basilica. This book of Masses was the first by a native composer, since in the Italian
    states of Palestrina's day, most composers of sacred music were from the Low Countries, France, Portugal,
    or Spain. In fact the book was modeled on one by Cristóbal de Morales: the woodcut in the front is almost
    an exact copy of the one from the book by the Spanish composer.

    During the next decade, Palestrina held positions similar to his Julian Chapel appointment at other chapels
    and churches in Rome, notably St John Lateran (1555–1560, a post previously held by Lassus), and St Mary
    Major (1561–1566). In 1571 he returned to the Julian Chapel and remained at St Peter's for the rest of his
    life. The decade of the 1570s was difficult for him personally: he lost his brother, two of his sons, and his
    wife in three separate outbreaks of the plague (1572, 1575, and 1580, respectively). He seems to have
    considered becoming a priest at this time, but instead he remarried, this time to a wealthy widow. This
    finally gave him financial independence (he was not well paid as choirmaster) and he was able to compose
    prolifically until his death.

    He died in Rome of pleurisy in 1594. As was usual, Palestrina was buried on the same day he died, in a
    plain coffin with a lead plate on which was inscribed Libera me Domine . A five-part psalm for three choirs
    was sung at the funeral. Palestrina's funeral was held at St. Peter's, and he was buried beneath the floor of
    the basilica. His tomb was later covered by new construction and attempts to locate the site have been
    unsuccessful.

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