Among the friends of his later life were S. Filippo Neri, his confessor, a favorite pupil named Guidetti, Ippolito d’Este, and Giacomo Buoncompagni, a nephew of Pope Gregory XIII. The activity of his early years continued almost to the very end. The record of the second half of his life is but a long catalogue of his publications. Whole collections of magnificent works were dedicated to popes, cardinals, or princes, some of whom returned the honor with scant courtesy. The last of these was a collection of thirty _madrigali spirituali_ for five voices, in honor of the Virgin, dedicated to the grand-duchess of Tuscany, wife of Ferdinand de’ Medici. Baini and Dr. Burney are full of praises for these last productions. While he was eagerly at work on another volume--seven masses to be dedicated to Pope Clement VII--he was taken ill and died, February 2, 1594, comforted and cared for to the end, not by his mean and worthless son, but by his saintly friend, Filippo Neri. By order of the Curia he was buried with all the honor of a cardinal or prince in the Basilica of the Vatican, while the citizens of Rome, high and low, followed him in sorrow to his grave. VI The immense number of Palestrina’s works is astonishing even in that age of prodigious workers. The list appended to a prospectus of a proposed 'selected’ edition of his works mentions ninety-three masses, one hundred and nineteen motets, forty-five hymns, sixty-eight offertories, three volumes of Lamentations; of litanies three books, of Magnificats two books, of madrigals four books--all of which are but a portion of his labors. The mass for Holy Thursday, _Fratres ego enim accepi_, the mass for the assumption of the Virgin, _Assumpta est Maria in coelum_, the motet, _Surge illuminare Jerusalem_, and the _Stabat Mater_ for two choirs, are still in use in the papal chapel. The _Improperia_, (reproaches of the Lord to an ungrateful people), performed for the first time in 1560, immediately obtained a great renown, and were added at once by Pope Pius IV to the collection of the apostolic chapel. This work also has been repeated in the Sistine chapel yearly on Good Friday up to the present time. Its performance made a profound impression upon both Goethe and Mendelssohn. The latter thus describes the singing of the pontifical choristers in the rendition of this work: 'They understood how to bring out and place each delicate trait in the most favorable light, without giving it undue prominence; one chord gently melted into another. The ceremony, at the same time, is solemn and imposing; deep silence prevails in the chapel, only broken by the reëchoing “Holy,” sung with unvarying sweetness and expression.’