It being established, then, that Palestrina was married but once, and it being assumed that he was happily married, it is strange to see how this happy marriage came near proving fatal to him. Palestrina, who was, like Michelangelo, intimate with various Popes, dedicated in 1554 his first printed book of masses to Pope Julius III. As a reward, the careless pontiff made him one of the singers of his Sistine Chapel, omitting the usual severe examination, and overlooking as a small matter the fact that Palestrina was so far from being a priest that he was very much married and very much the father, and furthermore had no voice. But Palestrina resigned his post as maestro at Saint Peter's and entered the chapel. The Pope died shortly afterward and was succeeded by a cardinal who was a patron of Palestrina's and continued his favour as Pope Marcellus II. Three weeks later this Pope also died, and was followed by Paul IV. Unfortunately for Palestrina, the new Pope was a strict constructionist, and he found it "indecent that there should be married men (_ammogliati_) interfering in holy offices." In spite of the action of the two previous pontificates, he determined to expel the three Benedicks who had entered the choir, Leonardo Barè, Domenico Ferrabosco, and Palestrina, "uomini ammogliati, e chi con grandissimo scandalo, ed in vilipendio del divin culto, contro le disposizioni dei sagri canoni, e contro le costituzioni e le consuetudini della cappella apostolica cantano i medesimi tre ammogliati imitamente ai capellani cantori." He then declares that, after mature deliberation, "cassiamo, discacciamo, e togliamo" from the list of chappellary singers these three, and that they ought to be "cassati, discacciati, e tolti dalla cappella," and that after the present order they "cassino, discaccino, e tolgano." And excommunication was threatened if any more married men (_uxorati_) were received in the chapel. This was on the 30th of July, 1555, just six months after Palestrina had resigned his important post at Saint Peter's. He was a young man with a family, and apparently keenly sensitive, for when this sonorous thunderbolt was launched at his head, he immediately fell ill of a fever and came nigh to death. But he recovered, and two months later found another post as canon of the Lateran, of which by the 1st of October, 1555, he was maestro. Eleven years later, a year after he had written his immortal Improperia, we find him begging on account of the needs of his family to be given an increase of salary, or the acceptance of his resignation. They gave him the acceptance. Again he found another post, and ten years later was back again as maestro of the Vatican after his many wanderings and vicissitudes. In the meanwhile he had written his famous mass named after his old friend, Pope Marcellus II. The ten years between 1561 and 1571 had marked an epoch not merely in the life of Palestrina, but in the history of religious music.