Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian composer of late Renaissance music and the central figure of the Roman School, born in Palestrina in the Papal States. In 1551 Pope Julius III made him maestro di cappella of the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter's Basilica; his book of masses of 1554 was the first by a native Italian composer. Barred as a married layman when Pope Paul IV required papal choristers to be clerics in 1555, he worked at St John Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore before returning to St Peter's in 1571 until his death in 1594. He left 105 masses and more than 300 motets, and his counterpoint, codified by Johann Joseph Fux, became a model for later composers.