COLONNA, GIOVANNI PAOLO. — Son of an organ-builder, born on 16 June 1637 in Bologna, where he died on 28 November 1695. He first studied in his native city with the organist Filippuzzi, and later in Rome with Carissimi, Abbatini, and Benevoli. Among the most distinguished musicians trained at the school he conducted in Bologna were G. Bononcini, G. F. Tosi, Fr. Antonio Urio, G. C. M. Clari, G. C. Predieri, G. Silvani, and others. He served as organist at the Collegio di S. Apollinare in Rome and, in 1659, at S. Petronio in Bologna, becoming maestro di cappella there on 1 November 1674. He was a co-founder and the first president of the Accademia Filarmonica.
He composed numerous oratorios: *L’Ercole trionfato* (1672, with G. B. Vitali), *L’Assalone* (1686), *San Basilio* (1679), *La Betulia liberata* (1690), *La caduta di Gerusalemme* (1688), *Giuliano* (1694), *La morte di s. Antonio* (1676), *Il Mosè legato di Dio e liberatore del popolo ebreo* (1686), *La Profetia di Eliseo nell’assedio di Samaria* (1686), *Salomone amante* (1679), *Sansone* (1677), *S. Teodora* (1678), *Il transito di Giuseppe* (1681), as well as masses, psalms, litanies, lamentations, motets, etc., for one to eight voices, some with instruments. Some works survive in manuscript, others in contemporary prints and later reprints, preserved in libraries in Bologna, Modena, Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Cambridge, London, and elsewhere.