Palestrina was a student of Mallapert and Firmin Lebel in St. Maria Maggiore, Rome, where he was a choirboy until 1537. In 1544 he became the organist of St. Agapito, Palestrina.

 

After the election of the Bishop of Palestrina as Pope (Julius III), he was appointed maestro di cappella of the Cappella Giulia in Rome (1551), where he published his first works (Masses, 1554). In 1555 he also sang in the Cappella Sistina.

 

Two of the largest churches in Rome then hired him as maestro di cappella, St. John Lateran (1555-60) and St. Maria Maggiore (1561-6), and in 1564 Cardinal Ippolito d'Este commissioned him to perform the music in his Tivoli estate supervise.

 

From 1566 he also taught music at the Seminario Romano before returning to the Cappella Giulia as maestro in 1571.

 

Such was his reputation that in 1577 he was asked to rewrite the most important hymn books of the Church according to the guidelines of the Council of Trent.

 

His most famous mass, Missa Papae Marcelli, may have been composed to meet the council's demands for musical power and text comprehensibility.

 

He was always in tune with the spirit of the Counter Reformation.

 

Palestrina is considered to be one of the greatest masters of the Renaissance. In his sacred music he processed and refined the polyphonic techniques of his predecessors, the classical model of Renaissance polyphony