If he succeeded, the Cardinals promised to make no further innovation; but if he failed, Carlo Borromeo warned him that the Congregation of Reform would disband the choral establishments of the Pontifical Chapel and the Roman churches, and prohibit the figured style in vogue, in pursuance of the clear decision of the Tridentine Council.
This was a task of Hercules imposed on Palestrina.

The art to which he had devoted his lifetime, the fame which he had acquired as a composer, the profession by which he and all his colleagues gained their daily bread, depended on his working out the problem.

He was practically commanded to discover a new species of Church music, or to behold the ruin of himself and his companions, the extinction of the art and science he so passionately loved.

Truly may his biographer remark: 'I am deliberately of opinion that no artist either before or since has ever found himself in a parallel strait.' We have no exact record of the spirit in which he approached this labor.[210] But he was a man of sincere piety, a great and enthusiastic servant of art.

The command he had received came from a quarter which at that period and in Rome had almost divine authority.