The Fountains of Rome

Fountain of the Bees

Map
Fountain of the Bees by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Via Veneto, Rome
Fountain of the Bees
The Fontana delle Api (Fountain of the Bees, 1644) was created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Urban VIII (r. 1623-44), a member of the Barberini family, whose coat of arms comprises three bees. 

The delightful little fountain, which stands at one end of the Via Veneto, takes the form of a bee's outspread wing. 

The fountain bears an inscription in Latin: VRBANVS · VIII · PONTIFEX · MAXIMVS / FONTI · AD · PVBLICVM · VRBIS · ORNAMENTVM / EXSTRVCTO / SINGVLARVM · VSIBVS · SEORSIM · COMMODITATE · HAC / CONSVLVIT / ANNO · MDCXLIV · PONT · XXI (Urban VIII Pontifex Maximus, having built a fountain for the public ornamentation of the city, also built this little fountain to be of service to private citizens in the year 1644, the twenty-first of his pontificate).

The phrase 'public ornamentation' is a reference to the nearby Fontana del Tritone (Triton Fountain), which Bernini had completed the year before.

The inscription originally stated that the fountain was completed in the twenty-second year of the pontificate of Urban VIII, when the pope had not yet reigned twenty-one years! This error did not go down with the public, who accused the pope of being unable to count and of stealing time. The extra numeral was duly chiselled out. Pope Urban VIII died on July 29th 1644, just eight days before the start of his twenty-second year.