COLONNA, GIOVANNI PAOLO. - Son of an organ builder, b. 16 June 1637 in Bologna, died there 28 Nov. 1695. He first studied in his native city with the organist Filippuzzi, and then in Rome with Carissimi, Abbatini and Benevoli. At the school he kept in Bologna, accomplished musicians were trained, among whom are remembered G. Bononcini, G. F. Tosi, Father Francesco Antonio Urio, G. C. M. Clari, G. C. Predieri, G. Silvani, etc. He was organist in the college of S. Apollinare in Rome and, in 1659, at S. Petronio, of which on 1 Nov. 1674 he became maestro di cappella. He was a co-founder and first president of the Accademia filarmonica.
He wrote many oratorios: L'alloro trionfato (1672) with G. B. Vitali, l'Assalonne (1686), San Basilio (1679), La Betulia liberata (1690), La caduta di Gensalemme (1688), Giuliano (1694), La morte di s. Antonio (1676), Il Mosè legato di Dio e liberatore del popolo ebreo (1686), La Profesia di Eliseo nell'assedio di Samara (1686), Salomone amante (1679), Sansone (1677), S. Teodora (1678), Il transito di s. Giuseppe (1681), as well as masses, psalms, litanies, lamentations, motets, etc. for 1 to 8 voices, also with instruments. Some works are preserved in manuscript, others in prints of the period and later reprints, in the libraries of Bologna, Modena, Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Cambridge, London, etc.