But the clouds soon lifted.  Within a few weeks after this unfortunate event, the rejected singer of the Sistine Chapel was created Chapel Master of Saint John Lateran, the splendid basilica, where the young Orlandus Lassus had so recently directed the music.  As Palestrina could still keep his six scudi pension, increased with the added salary of the new position, he was able to establish his family in a pretty villa on the Coelian Hill, where he could be near his work at the Lateran, but far enough removed from the turmoil of the city to obtain the quiet he desired, and where he lived in tranquillity for the next five years.

Palestrina spent forty-four years of his life in Rome.  All the eleven popes who reigned during this long period honored Palestrina as a great musician.  Marcellus II spent a part of his three weeks’ reign in showing kindness to the young Chapel master, which the composer returned by naming for this pontiff a famous work, “Mass of Pope Marcellus.”  Pius IV, who was in power when the mass was performed, praised it eloquently, saying John Peter Louis of Palestrina was a new John, bringing down to the church militant the harmonies of that “new song” which John the Apostle heard in the Holy City.  The musician-pope, Gregory XIII, to whom Palestrina dedicated his grandest motets, entrusted him with the sacred task of revising the ancient chant.  Pope Sixtus V greatly praised his beautiful mass, “Assumpta est Maria” and promoted him to higher honors.

With this encouragement and patronage, Palestrina labored five years at the Lateran, ten years at Santa Maria Maggiore and twenty three at Saint Peter’s.  At the last named it was his second term, of course, but it continued from 1571 to his death.  He was happy in his work, in his home and in his friends.  He also saved quite a little money and was able to give his daughter-in-law, in 1577, 1300 scudi; he is known indeed, to have bought land, vineyards and houses in and about Rome.

All was not a life of sunshine for Palestrina, for he suffered many domestic sorrows.  His three promising sons died one after another.  They were talented young men, who might have followed in the footsteps of their distinguished father.  In 1580 his wife died also.  Yet neither poignant sorrow, worldly glory nor ascetic piety blighted his homely affections.  At the Jubilee of Pope Gregory XIII, in 1575, when 1500 pilgrims from the town of Palestrina descended the hills on the way to Rome, it was their old townsman, Giovanni Pierluigi, who led their songs, as they entered the Eternal City, their maidens clad in white robes, and their young men bearing olive branches.