been for him what the Chorales of Germany were for the school of Bach.[207] Externally, Palestrina’s life was a very uneventful one, and the records collected with indefatigable diligence by his biographer have only brought to light changes from one post to another in several Basilicas, and unceasing industry in composition.  The vast number of works published by Palestrina in his lifetime, or left in MS. at his death, or known to have been written and now lost, would be truly astonishing were it not a fact that very eminent creative genius is always copious, and in no province of the arts more fertile than in that of music.  Palestrina lived and died a poor man.  In his dedications he occasionally remarks with sober pathos on the difficulty of pursuing scientific studies in the midst of domestic anxiety.  His pay was very small, and the expense of publishing his works, which does not seem to have been defrayed by patrons, was at that time very great.  Yet he enjoyed an uncontested reputation as the first of living composers, the saviour of Church music, the creator of a new style; and on his tomb, in 1594, was inscribed this title:  Princeps Musicae.

[Footnote 207:  See Michelet, Histoire de France, vol. xi. pp. 76, 101, vol. xii. p. 383 (Paris:  Lacroix, 1877).]

The state of confusion into which ecclesiastical music had fallen, rendered it inevitable that some notice of so grave a scandal should be taken by the Fathers of the Tridentine Council in their deliberations on reform of ritual.  It appears, therefore, that in their twenty-second session (September 17, 1562) they enjoined upon the Ordinaries to ’exclude from churches all such music as, whether through the organ or the singing, introduces anything of impure or lascivious, in order that the house of God may truly be seen to be and may be called the house of prayer.’[208] In order to give effect to this decree of the Tridentine Council, Pius IV. appointed a congregation of eight Cardinals upon August 2, 1564, among whom three deserve especial mention—­Michele Ghislieri, the Inquisitor, who was afterwards Pope Pius V.; Carlo Borromeo, the sainted Archbishop of Milan; and Vitellozzo Vitellozzi.  It was their business, among other matters of reform, to see that the Church music of Rome was instantly reduced to proper order in accordance with the decree of the Council.  Carlo Borromeo was nephew and chief minister of the reigning Pope.  Vitellozzo Vitellozzi was a young man of thirty-three years, who possessed a singular passion for music.

[Footnote 208:  Baini, i. p. 196.]

To these two members of the congregation, as a sub-committee, was deputed the special task of settling the question of ecclesiastical music, it being stipulated that they should by all means see that sufficient clearness was introduced into the enunciation of the liturgical words by the singers.