“Then he felt as if all at once great wings unfolded from his soul, as if he were lifted up from a dry heath …”

In search of a new, devout hearing, as described in the Outpourings of an Art-Loving Friar, the Romantics discovered
old Italian church music to be the epitome of transcendence. Exemplary of this is Gregorio Allegri’s music for Miserere mei, Deus (“Have mercy on me, O God”), which has been part of the Good Friday liturgy in the Sistine Chapel since the mid-17th century.