x, 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.

I will here interrupt the thread of the narration, in order to touch
upon the legendary story which connects Palestrina incorrectly with what
subsequently happened. It was well known that on the decisions of the
sub-committee of the congregation hung the fate of Church music. For
some while it seemed as though music might be altogether expelled from
the rites of the Catholic Ecclesia. And it soon became matter of history
that Palestrina had won the cause of his art, had maintained it in its
eminent position in the ritual of Rome, and at the same time had opened
a new period in the development of modern music by the production of his
Mass called the _Mass of Pope Marcellus_ at this critical moment. These
things were true; and when the peril had been overpassed, and the actual
circumstances of the salvation and revolution of Church music had been
forgot