Missa Papae Marcelli, or "Pope Marcellus Mass", is a Mass, by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It is his most well-known and most often-performed Mass, and is frequently taught in university courses on music. It was always sung at the Papal Coronation Mass (the last being the Coronation of Pope Paul VI in 1963).
The Mass was composed in honour of Pope Marcellus II, who reigned for three weeks in 1555. Recent scholarship suggests the most likely date of composition is 1562, when it was copied into a manuscript at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
The third and closing Sessions of the Council of Trent were held in 1562-63, at which the use of polyphonic music in the Catholic Church was discussed. Concerns were raised over two problems: First, the use of music that was objectionable, such as secular songs provided with religious lyrics (contrafacta) or Masses based on songs with lyrics about drinking or lovemaking; and, second, whether imitation in polyphonic music obscured the words of the Mass, interfering with the listener's devotion.
Some debate occurred over whether polyphony should be banned outright in worship, and some of the auxiliary publications by attendants of the Council caution against both of these problems. However, none of the official proclamations from the Council mentions polyphonic music, excepting one injunction against the use of music that is, in the words of the Council, "lascivious or impure".
Starting in the Late-16th-Century, a legend began that the second of these points, the threat that polyphony might have been banned by the Council, because of the unintelligibility of the words, was the impetus behind Palestrina's composition of this Mass.
It was believed that the simple, declamatory, style of Missa Papae Marcelli convinced Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, on hearing, that polyphony could be intelligible, and that music such as Palestrina's was all too beautiful to ban from the Church.
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