On 24 February 1530, Pope Clement VII crowned the Habsburg ruler Charles V Holy Roman Emperor in Bologna. This was the last coronation of an emperor by a sitting pope in the manner of Charlemagne’s coronation by Leo III in the year 800, and it was by all accounts a splendid event, with the choirs of both the pope and the emperor in attendance.
The papal choir included the celebrated Italian composer Costanzo Festa, while the imperial choir’s most illustrious member was the South Netherlandish composer Nicolas Gombert. A mass by Gombert, the Missa Sur tout regretz, has the phrase “A la incoronation” as a subtitle in its earliest printed source.
