Margherita Colonna
She was born in Palestrina about 1255. Her father, Oddone Colonna, died when she was about two years old. Her mother, who was also named Margherita and who was the sister of Matteo Rosso Orsini and a pious woman, died when Margherita was probably a little over ten years old. Margherita was left in the care of her older brothers.
R. J. Stove
Born in 1961 in Sydney, but later resident in Melbourne, Stove graduated from Sydney University in 1985. He is the author of four books: "Prince of Music"—a biography of the composer Palestrina; "The Unsleeping Eye"—a brief history of secret police from the sixteenth to the twentieth century ; "A Student's Guide to Music History"—summary history of classical music from the Middle Ages to the Second World War; and most recently "César Franck: His Life and Times". Also, he has co-edited, with James Franklin, "Cricket Versus Republicanism"—a posthumously published collection of essays by his father, the philosopher David Stove (1927–1994). Brought up as an atheist, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002.