The Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music was founded by St Pius X in 1910. The Institute was inaugurated on 3rd January 1911 and confirmed by the papal brief Expleverunt on 4th November of the same year. On 10 July 1914, with a rescript of the Secretariat of State, the Institute was declared Pontifical and granted the faculty to confer academic degrees. Benedict XV assigned the palace of Sant'Apollinare as the Institute's residence, moving it from its previous location in Via del Mascherone (16th October 1914). Pius XI, with the Motu proprio Ad musicæ sacræ restitutionem (22 November 1922) gave it statutes, confirming its immediate dependence on the Holy See.
With the Apostolic Constitution Deus scientiarum Dominus (24th May 1931), the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music was included among the pontifical universities and faculties. Pius XII strongly recommended attendance to the courses in a letter to the bishops throughout the world from the Secretariat of State (22nd November 1953) and in the encyclical Musicæ sacræ disciplina (25th December 1955). In its Instruction on Sacred Music and the Sacred Liturgy of 3rd October 1958, the Sacred Congregation of Rites noted the priority of the Roman Institute. St John XXIII, on the occasion of the 50th year of its foundation, extolled its work in the Apostolic Letter Iocunda laudatio and established a section of the Academy specifically dedicated to sacred music in mission territories (8th December 1961).
In 1983, St John Paul II assigned the entire building of the Abbey of San Girolamo in Urbe to the Institute, where teaching and liturgical activities have been carried out ever since the 1984-1985 academic year. On 19th January 2001, on the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, the body and staff of the Institute were received in a special audience by St John Paul II.
The Chirograph on Sacred Music, issued by St John Paul II on 22 November 2003 to commemorate the centenary of the motu proprio Inter sollicitudines of St Pius X, was another sign of the concern he showed for the Institute. Recalling the merits of "this academic institution now one hundred years old, which has rendered and continues to render qualified service to the Church", he designated it as a collaborating body of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in the "task of regulating and promoting the Sacred Liturgy", particularly in the "sector of sacred liturgical music".
The Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, as an academic and scientific institution established by the Holy See, enjoys its own juridical personality, governed by the norms of canon law and by its own statutes, which are approved by the Holy See. With the authorisation of the Holy See, it confers the academic degrees of Baccalaureate, Licentiate and Doctorate.
The Institute pursues the following objectives: to teach liturgical-musical disciplines from a practical, theoretical and historical point of view, to promote the knowledge and dissemination of the tradition of sacred music and to foster artistic expressions of that tradition appropriate to today's cultures, to render on behalf of the Mother Church of Rome a service to local Churches throughout the world with a view to training church musicians and future teachers in the field of sacred music. The Institute fulfils its mandate through teaching, research, publication, and concert and liturgical performance.
