Giovanni Paolo Colonna

In addition to being chapel-master and organist of San Petronio Basilica in Bologna, he served prominent members of the courts of Ferrara, Parma, Modena and Florence.

Emperor Leopold I collected manuscripts of his sacred music, which reflects the Roman church cantata style of Giacomo Carissimi and looks forward to the manner of George Frideric Handel.

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 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.

[3] His writing takes into account the resonant acoustics of S. Petronio, and many of his pieces for double choir incorporate two separate continuo parts to be played on the church's two organs.