He was born in
Rovenna, a small village near
Como, Lombardy. As a boy in Como, he worked with a painter by the name of Caprera. By 1617, he travelled to Bologna to apprentice with
Gabriello Ferrantini or
Gabriel degli Occhiali, and then the early
quadratura master,
Girolamo Curti, called
il Dentone. He painted
frescoes for the
Palazzo Albergati in Bologna. He would have been known by the biographer of Bolognese artists,
Cesare Malvasia, for whom Colonna frescoed the Villa Malvasia in Trebbo in 1624, along with Curti and
Domenico Ambrogi. The following year, Curti and Colonna frescoed parts of the Villa Paleotti (now Villa Monari-Sardè). Also in 1625, along with Ambrogi, he carried out frescoes in the Villa Malvezzi-Campeggi in Bagnarola and after being recommended by
Alessandro Tiarini, he helped to decorate the ceiling of the church of
Sant'Alessandro in
Parma. In 1625, he collaborated with
Lucio Massari,
Francesco Gessi and others in the decoration of the Oratory of San Rocco in Bologna, painting six of the saints and allegories. In 1627, he painted in San Michele in Bosco. After Curti died in 1632, Colonna began a long collaboration with the skilled
quadratura painter
Agostino Mitelli until 1660. Together they contributed to the decorations of the
Palazzo Spada in Rome, and then painted in the
Pitti Palace in Florence, including a large fresco of the 'Fame of the Medici crowned by Glory'. '', column of
the Archangel Michael They became the pre-eminent
quadratura fresco painters of northern Italy with Colonna principally executing the figurative elements and Mitelli, the
quadratura or illusionistic architectural frameworks: in Modena, they painted in the
Este palace at
Sassuolo; they executed the ceiling of the now destroyed
Oratorio de San Girolamo of
Rimini; in 1657 they carried out the decoration of the chapel of the Rosary in the
basilica of San Domenico in Bologna, including a framed 'Assumption of the Virgin'; and between 1653 and 1658, they painted the gallery leading to the High Altar of
San Michele in Bosco. In 1658, Colonna and Mitelli were called to Spain to work for
Philip IV of Spain; both painters had initially been contracted for this work by
Diego Velázquez. Unfortunately all their collaborative work there, including the Pandora ceiling in the Hall of Mirrors in the
Royal Alcázar of Madrid, has been destroyed. Mitelli died in Madrid in 1660, and Colonna returned to Bologna in 1662, where he began collaborating with Mitelli's pupil,
Giacomo Alboresi (1632–1677). Colonna continued to be prolific in Bologna, decorating several palaces, including the
Palazzo Cospi Ferretti. His later collaborations varied in quality, the finest being two ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Albergati at
Zola Predosa, Bologna (1665). In his last two decorative schemes, realized with the collaboration of
Gioacchino Pizzoli, the nave ceiling of
Santi Bartolomeo e Gaetano (1667), and the vault of the Council Hall of
Palazzo d'Accursio, the town hall of Bologna, (1677), he reverted to the dominant academic tradition of Bolognese quadratura. Colonna died at
Bologna in 1687, aged 82.
Giuseppe Romani was one of his apprentices. ==Gallery==