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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina 1525-1594

Palestrina served as organist and singer from 1544 in the city of Palestrina; he had begun his career as a boy chorister in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, a city to which he returned in 1551 to assume the post of Maestro of the Chapel Giulia at St. Peter's. Palestrina was a member of the Cappella Sistina but was required to drop out when he married in 1555. That same year he became Maestro di cappella at the church of St. John Lateran, and the following year he became director of concerts at Cardinal Ippolito's villa. Palestrina composed 105 Masses, more than 250 motets, Magnificats, other sacred music, and some secular madrigals. Bach is known to have arranged one of Palestrina's Missa sine nomine for voices and instruments.

Bach's World Contemporaries Chronology