Born in Rome, Filippo was the son of Don Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, hereditary Grand Constable of the Kingdom of Naples, and Maria Mancini, a niece of Cardinal Mazarin. The Spanish had ruled Naples since the early sixteenth century, and the Colonna were prominent servants of the Spanish crown in Italy. In 1687, while his father served as head of the interregnum council of Naples, Filippo was appointed commander of a company of lancers. In 1689 he succeeded his father as Grand Constable and Duke-Prince of Paliano.
As a patron of the arts, Filippo had the art gallery in the family's Roman palazzo refurbished. He opened the gallery in 1703. The composer Giovanni Bononcini wrote six serenatas, an oratorio and five operas while in his service (1692–1697). Filippo was a member of the Academy of Arcadia, which had been established in Rome in 1690.
Don Filippo married the Spanish aristocrat Lorenza de la Cerda in Madrid in 1681, but she died without issue in 1697. Later that year in Rome he wed his second wife, the Italian aristocrat Olimpia Pamphilj (1672–1731), by whom he had several children.
The Prince suffered from painful bladder stones and diseased kidneys prior to his death at Rome in 1714. His son Fabrizio II Colonna succeeded him in his hereditary titles. Fabrizio also commissioned a tomb for his father in the church of Sant’ Andrea in the family seat of Paliano, which was executed by the sculptor Bernardino Ludovisi and installed in 1745.
References
Robert Enggass, “Ludovisi’s Tomb for a Colonna Prince” Burlington Magazine, CXXXV (1993): 822–824.
