Colonna was born on 16 June 1637 in
Bologna (at the time, the second largest city of the
Papal States after Rome), the third of four brothers in a family of five children, son of Antonio Colonna (c. 1600–1666), a well-known organ builder, and his wife, Francesca Dinarelli. Colonna's father, nicknamed Dal Corno, was the adopted son of Stefano Colonna, a member of a large and successful family of organ-builders which had been active in central-northern Italy since the previous century. He was a pupil of Agostino Filippuzzi in Bologna, and of
Antonio Maria Abbatini and
Orazio Benevoli in
Rome, where for a time he held the post of organist at
S. Apollinare. A poem in praise of his music shows that he began to distinguish himself as a composer in 1659. In that year he was appointed organist at
S. Petronio in Bologna, where on 1 November 1674 he was made
chapel-master. From 1680 until 1694 he was in regular correspondence with
Francesco II d'Este, Duke of Modena, for whom he wrote
oratorios and helped construct
organs. Other prominent patrons included the
Marquis of
Ferrara,
Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma, and the
Medici family in Florence, for whom he composed secular
cantatas. In 1666 he was one of the founder-members of the
Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna, of which was president from 1672 to 1691. In 1694 he travelled to Rome to try to mend bridges following a dispute regarding
Arcangelo Corelli's use of
parallel fifths in which he had been involved; while there, he turned down an offer from
Pope Innocent XII to become chapel-master of
St. Peter's Basilica, perhaps because of ill health. He died in Bologna in 1695. Colonna's pupils included the cellist-composers
Giovanni Bononcini and
Antonio Maria Bononcini. ==Music==