I did a quick and dirty test and it works for me:
I used exactly your item definition
and I was sending the Json via node-red through mqtt but that should not make a difference
2018-08-20 01:47:04.209 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - PrusaMk3_Temperature_Tool0 changed from NULL to 24.9
2018-08-20 01:48:18.327 [vent.ItemStateChangedEvent] - PrusaMk3_Temperature_Tool0 changed from 24.9 to 24.6
Maybe a quick clearing of the cache will make it work… Maybe…