Pope Gregory XIII

Pontiff used his power to change the date overnight

Pope Gregory XIII took his papal name in
honour of another reformer, Gregory I

Pope Gregory XIII was born Ugo Boncompagni on this day in 1502 in Bologna.

Gregory XIII is chiefly remembered for bringing in the Gregorian calendar, which is still the internationally accepted calendar today.

As Ugo Boncompagni, he studied law in Bologna and graduated in 1530. He later taught jurisprudence and among his students were the Cardinals Alessandro Farnese and Carlo Borromeo.

Before he took holy orders, Ugo had an affair with Maddalena Fulchini, who gave birth to his illegitimate son, Giacomo Boncompagni.

Pope Paul III summoned Ugo to Rome in 1538 to work for him in a judicial capacity. He went on to work for Pope Paul IV and Pope Pius IV. Ugo was made Cardinal Priest of San Sisto Vecchio and sent to the Council of Trent by Pius IV.

He was also sent to be legate to Phillip II of Spain and formed a close relationship with the Spanish King.

In 1572, after the death of Pope Pius V, the 70-year-old Cardinal Boncompagni was chosen to be the next pope and assumed the name of Gregory XIII, in homage to Pope Gregory I, who is remembered as a great church reformer.

Mathematician and astronomer Christopher
Clavius was co-writer of the calendar

Following in his namesake’s footsteps, Gregory XIII dedicated himself to reforming the Catholic Church and putting into practice the recommendations of the Council of Trent.

The Roman College of the Jesuits grew under his direction and became an important centre of learning. It is now known as the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Gregory XIII is best known for replacing the Julian calendar, which had been in use since 45 BC, with the calendar produced by astronomer Luigi Giglio and the German Jesuit priest, mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius, making the year slightly shorter.

In the Julian calendar, each year was too long, meaning that the March equinox had slipped back to an earlier date over the centuries.

The Pope decreed in 1582 that the day after Thursday, 4 October would be Friday, 15 October. The new calendar became known as the Gregorian calendar and is now used universally.

Gregory XIII encouraged Phillip II of Spain in his plans to dethrone Elizabeth I of England, causing English Protestants to regard all Catholics as potential traitors.

Detail of the monument to Pope Gregory VIII in the
Basilica of St Peter in Rome

He equipped an expedition to Ireland to help the Catholics in their struggle with the Protestants, but all the soldiers, sailors and women and children on board the boat were either beheaded or hanged on landing in Kerry, during what became known as the Smerwick Massacre.

In Rome, Gregory XIII had work completed on the magnificent Gregorian Chapel in the Basilica of Saint Peter and extended the Quirinale palace. He appointed his illegitimate son, Giacomo, as Castellan of Sant’Angelo and Gonfalonier of the Church. Venice enrolled Giacomo among its nobles and Phillip II made him one of his army generals. Gregory also helped his son acquire the Duchy of Sora on the border between the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples.

To fund these projects, Gregory XIII confiscated houses and properties belonging to the church.

Pope Gregory XIII became ill with a fever in 1585 and died on 10 April, aged 83. He was succeeded by Pope Sixtus V, who found the papacy had been left considerably impoverished.

The campanile of the Basilica of San Sisto
Vecchia, where Gregory XIII was priest

Travel tip:

The Basilica of San Sisto Vecchia in Piazzale Numa Pompilo in Rome, where Pope Gregory XIII was Cardinal Priest for seven years, is one of 60 minor basilicas in the city. The basilica was built near the Baths of Caracalla in the fourth century and is dedicated to Pope Sixtus II, who was martyred in 258. His relics were transferred to the church from the Catacomb of Callixtus in the sixth century. San Sisto was rebuilt in the 13th century and restored in the 18th century, preserving only the bell tower, apse and a 13th century fresco cycle from the medieval church.

The dome of the Gregorian Chapel, finished by Giacomo
della Porta, in St Peter's Basilica

Travel tip:

Pope Gregory XIII commissioned the architect Giacomo della Porta to complete the work started by Michelangelo on the chapel in St Peter’s Basilica that was to be named after the pontiff. It has been described as ‘the most beautiful chapel in the world’ because of its marbles, mother-of-pearl, precious stones, gilded bronze, multi-coloured mosaics and stucco ornamentation. The monument to Pope Gregory XIII in white marble, executed by Milanese sculptor Camillo Rusconi, is in the Basilica near the entrance to the Gregorian Chapel. The Pope is portrayed giving his blessing on top of an urn bearing a relief showing the promulgation of the Gregorian calendar in 1852.

Also on this day:

1625: The death of religious composer Ruggiero Giovanelli

1655: The death of Pope Innocent X

1797: The tricolore flag is hoisted for the first time

1920: The birth of actor Vincent Gardenia


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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina - composer

Prolific writer had huge influence on the development of religious music

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was once
sacked by St Peter's for being married

The composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who was the most famous representative of the 16th century Roman school of musical composition and whose work is often described as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony, died on this day in 1594 in Rome.

Probably in his 70th year when he died, he had composed hundreds of pieces, including 104 masses, more than 300 motets, at least 72 hymns and some 140 or more madrigals.

He served twice as maestro di cappella - musical director - of the Cappella Giulia (Julian Chapel), the choir at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, a highly prestigious if not well paid position.

Appointed for the first time in 1551, he might have stayed there for the rest of his working life had a new pope, Paul IV, not introduced much stricter discipline compared with his predecessor, Julius III. A decree set down by Paul IV in 1555 forbade married men to serve in the papal choir, as a result of which Palestrina and two colleagues were dismissed.

Palestrina subsequently directed the choir at the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano for five years before quitting abruptly in frustration at the limited ability of his singers, compared with St Peter’s.

An engraving from 1544 shows Palestrina presenting
Pope Julius III with a mass dedicated to him

After a period of unemployment, when he and his family had to live in modest circumstances, he took a position at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he stayed for seven years before, at the invitation of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, he took charge of the music at the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, a popular summer resort near Rome. He also worked as music master for a newly-formed Seminarium Romanum (Roman Seminary), where his sons Rodolfo and Angelo became students.

By this time, his fame was spreading, but he turned down offers to go to Vienna to become musical director at the court of the emperor Maximilian II, and from the Duke of Mantua, Guglielmo Gonzaga, on the grounds that he preferred not to leave Rome, although his financial demands were considered too high also.

With the death in 1571 of Giovanni Animuccia, who had been musical director at the Vatican since Palestrina left, there was a chance for him to to return to his old post as musical director of the Julian Choir. Offered a much bigger salary, he accepted the opportunity to return and, when Santa Maria Maggiore attempted to rehire him, St. Peter’s again raised his salary.

Palestrina had been born in a house in Via Cecconi in the town of Palestrina, about 35km (22 miles) east of Rome. Commonly known as Gianetto, he became an altar boy and sang in the choir of his local church. By 1537, at around the age of 12, records suggest the was a chorister at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, where he was taught elementary composition.

The first page of Palestrina's Pope Marcellus
Mass, published in 1565

It is thought his music was influenced by the northern European style of polyphony, dominant in Italy at the time thanks to two composers from the Netherlands, Guillaume Dufay and Josquin des Prez. Until Palestrina, Italy had not produced anyone of comparable skill in polyphony, a style of composition which consists of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony.

At about 20 years old, Palestrina took his first job an organist of the Cathedral of St. Agapito, the principal church in his home town. In 1547, he married Lucrezia Gori, whose father had just died and left her some money as well as a house and a vineyard.

They had three sons, Rodolfo, Angelo and Iginio, and lived a relatively contented life until the series of epidemics that swept through central Italy in the late 1570s sadly took the lives of his wife and their two elder sons. Pelestrina himself became seriously ill and when he recovered, still grieving, he announced his intention to become a priest.

This all changed, however, when he met Virginia Dormoli, the widow of a wealthy merchant, whom he married in 1581. He took over the running of her late husband’s fur and leather business, which had a monopoly to supply ermine trim to the papal court. This gave him financial security for the first time in his life and he invested in property, drawing a further income from the rent on four houses.

A statue erected to commemorate the life
of Palestrina in his home town

Despite the now considerable demands on his time, Palestrina continued to compose prolifically, perhaps more so, and maintained a remarkably high standard in both his sacred and secular works.

The Palestrina Style - the smooth style of 16th century polyphony - is usually taught as ‘Renaissance polyphony’ in college counterpoint classes of today.  It is characterised by the strict guidelines that Palestrina followed, namely that the flow of music should be ‘dynamic, not rigid or static’; that the melody should contain few leaps between notes and any leaps be immediately countered by opposite stepwise motion; and that dissonances (lack of harmony) are either passing note or off the beat and, if on the beat, immediately resolved.

His 105 masses embrace many different styles, and the number of voices used ranges from four to eight. Among his most important were his Pope Marcellus Mass, Accepit Jesus calicem, “L’Homme armé, Tu es Petrus and his Ave Maria. 

Palestina died in Rome on February 2, 1594 after suffering with pleurisy. His funeral was held at St. Peter's, and he was buried beneath the floor of the basilica, although his tomb was later covered by new construction and attempts to locate the site have so far been unsuccessful.

Detail from the Nile Mosaic in the Museo Archeologico
Nazionale di Palestrina, near Rome

Travel tip:

Palestrina is a pretty town of narrow, flower-bedecked streets and is full of history. In Etruscan times, then known as Praeneste, it was home to a spectacular terraced temple, the Santuario della Fortuna Primigenia, which covered much of what is now the centre of the town. It has long since been built over but there is a model in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Palestrina, the town’s hilltop museum, which also contains many exhibits of Etruscan remains, among them the Nile Mosaic, which once decorated the heart of the temple, depicting the course of the Nile through the Egyptian landscape, complete with attendant lions and crocodiles, until it reaches the sea. Outside the museum, within its grounds, there are some exposed sections of the original temple.

The Fontana dell'Ovato is one of the profusion of fountains
in the gardens of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli

Travel tip:

The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, about 32km (19 miles) east of Rome, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance gardens, often referred to simply as the Tivoli Gardens, and for its profusion of fountains, more than 50 in total. A former Benedictine convent, the villa and gardens were designed by the Mannerist architect Pirro Ligorio for Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, who had confiscated it as his residence. It is now an Italian state museum, and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.

More reading:

Ruggiero Giovannelli, a composer of religious music thought to have been Palestrina's pupil

How Cardinal Domenico Bartolucci became an authority on Palestrina's work

Carlo Maderno, designer of the great facade of St Peter's in Rome

Also on this day:

1723: The death of anatomist Antonio Maria Valsalva

1891: The birth of former prime minister and president Antonio Segni

1925: The birth of Olympic showjumper Raimondo D’Inzeo

(Picture credits: Statue by Sergio d'Afflitto; Mosaic by Camilia.boban; Fountain by Dnalor.01)

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