Giovanni Perluigui Aloisio da Palestrina was born at Palestrina, the
ancient Præneste, in 1524.*

* Our composer, as was common with artists and scholars in
those days, took the name of his natal town, and by this he
is known to fame. Old documents also give him the old Latin
name of the town with the personal ending.

The memorials of his childhood are scanty. We know but little except
that his parents were poor peasants, and that he learned the rudiments
of literature and music as a choir-singer, a starting-point so common in
the lives of great composers. In 1540 he went to Rome and studied in
the school of Goudimel, a stern Huguenot Fleming, tolerated in the papal
capital on account of his superior science and method of teaching, and
afterward murdered at Lyons on the day of the Paris massacre. Palestrina
grasped the essential doctrines of the school without adopting its
mannerisms. At the age of thirty he published his first compositions,
and dedicated them to the reigning pontiff, Julius III. In the formation
of his style, which moved with such easy, original grace within the old
prescribed rules, he learned much from the personal influence and advice
of Orlando di Lasso, his warm friend and constant companion during these
earlier days.

Several of his compositions, written at this time, are still performed
in Rome on Good Friday, and Goethe and Mendelssohn have left their
eloquent tributes to the impression made on them by music alike simple
and sublime. The pope was highly pleased with Palestrina's noble music,
and appointed him one of the papal choristers, then regarded as a great
honor. But beyond Rome the new light of music was but little known.
The Council of Trent, in their first indignation at the abuse of church