Fontana delle Api Fontana delle Api Fontana delle Api ("Fountain of the Bees") is a fountain located in the Piazza Barberini in Rome where the Via Veneto enters the piazza. It was sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and completed in April 1644. "Fontana delle Api" consists of a marble bi-valve shell with three bees of the same material resting on it. The fountain was intended to be a watering trough for horses. An inscription on the shell reads, "Urban VIII Pont. Max., having built a fountain for the public ornamentation of the City, also built this little fountain to be of service to
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (to this day) the marble originals of two of Bernini's own angels executed by the master for the Ponte Sant'Angelo. True to the decorative dynamism of Baroque, among Bernini's most gifted creations were his Roman fountains, which were both public works and papal monuments. His fountains include the "Fountain of the Triton", or "Fontana del Tritone", and the Barberini Fountain of the Bees, the "Fontana delle Api". The Fountain of the Four Rivers, or "Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi", in the Piazza Navona is a masterpiece of spectacle and political allegory. An oft-repeated, but false, anecdote tells that one of the