Fontana delle Api | |
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| Fountain | |
 Fontana delle Api by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. | |
| Design | Gian Lorenzo Bernini |
| Location | Piazza Barberini, Rome, Italy |
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| Coordinates: 41°54′15.5″N12°29′19.4″E / 41.904306°N 12.488722°E | |
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.
Within months of the completion of the Triton fountain, Pope Urban VIII commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to build a small fountain for public use that would serve the function of "beveratore delli cavalli" (horse trough). The work was completed in the same year, and in honor of the pope the artist represented on the fountain the Bees, the heraldic symbol of the Barberini family.
Initially placed at the corner of Palazzo Soderini, between Piazza Barberini and Via Sistina, the fountain was disassembled in 1880 for reasons of traffic obstruction, dismantled and placed in the Testaccio municipal depot. However, in 1915, when it was decided to rebuild it, most of the pieces were no longer found, and a copy was commissioned from Adolfo Apolloni, who instead of the original Luna marble employed travertine from the demolished Porta Salaria. Thus renovated, the fountain was inaugurated on January 28, 1916, in its present location at the entrance to Via Veneto from Piazza Barberini.
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 private citizens. In the year 1644, XXI of his pontificate." The "public ornamentation" referred to in the inscription is the Fontana del Tritone (Triton Fountain), which Bernini had completed the year before.
Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome. In the latter decades of his life, he was, along with Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the major rivals of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in Rome. He is now most admired for his portrait busts that have great vivacity and dignity.
Gian LorenzoBernini was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture. As one scholar has commented, "What Shakespeare is to drama, Bernini may be to sculpture: the first pan-European sculptor whose name is instantaneously identifiable with a particular manner and vision, and whose influence was inordinately powerful ..." In addition, he was a painter and a man of the theatre: he wrote, directed and acted in plays, for which he designed stage sets and theatrical machinery. He produced designs as well for a wide variety of decorative art objects including lamps, tables, mirrors, and even coaches.
The Quirinal Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, at the north-east of the city center. It is the location of the official residence of the Italian head of state, who resides in the Quirinal Palace; by metonymy "the Quirinal" has come to stand for the Italian president. The Quirinal Palace has an extension of 1.2 million square feet.
Fontana del Tritone is a seventeenth-century fountain in Rome, by the Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Commissioned by his patron, Pope Urban VIII, the fountain is located in the Piazza Barberini, near the entrance to the Palazzo Barberini that Bernini helped to design and construct for the Barberini, Urban's family. This fountain should be distinguished from the nearby Fontana dei Tritoni by Carlo Francesco Bizzaccheri in Piazza Bocca della Verità which features two Tritons.
Saint Peter's Square is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of Jesus whom Catholics consider to be the first Pope.
The Palazzo Barberini is a 17th-century palace in Rome, facing the Piazza Barberini in Rione Trevi. Today, it houses the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, the main national collection of older paintings in Rome.
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi is a fountain in the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. It was designed in 1651 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Innocent X whose family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili, faced onto the piazza as did the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone of which Innocent was the sponsor.
Fontana del Moro is a fountain located at the southern end of the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. It depicts a nautical scene with tritons, dolphins, and a conch shell. It was originally designed by Giacomo della Porta in the 1570s with later contributions from Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the 1650s. Bernini sculpted a large terracotta model of the central figure, which Giovanni Antonio Mari used as a guide when sculpting the final figure. There is a debate around whether or not the central figure was intended by Bernini to depict a Moor. Some of the original sculptures were moved to the Galleria Borghese in 1874. In 2011, the fountain was vandalized.
The Fontana della Barcaccia is a Baroque-style fountain found at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome's Piazza di Spagna. Pope Urban VIII commissioned Pietro Bernini in 1623 to build the fountain as part of a prior Papal project to erect a fountain in every major piazza in Rome. The fountain was completed between 1627 and 1629 by Pietro possibly along with the help of his son Gian Lorenzo Bernini, especially after his father's death on August 29, 1629.
Barberini–Fontana di Trevi is an underground station on Line A of the Rome Metro, inaugurated in 1980 and situated under Piazza Barberini in Trevi. Originally, the station was simply named Barberini, and the name was extended in 2000.
Piazza Barberini is a large piazza in the centro storico or city center of Rome, Italy and situated on the Quirinal Hill. It was created in the 16th century but many of the surrounding buildings have subsequently been rebuilt.
Truth Unveiled by Time is a marble sculpture by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one of the foremost sculptors of the Italian Baroque. Executed between 1645 and 1652, Bernini intended to show Truth allegorically as a naked young woman being unveiled by a figure of Time above her, but the figure of Time was never executed.
The Palazzo di Propaganda Fide is a palace located in Rome, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, then Francesco Borromini. Since 1626, it has housed the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and since 1929 is an extraterritorial property of the Holy See. The complex includes a dormitory and chapel as well.
The Fontana delle Tartarughe is a fountain of the late Italian Renaissance, located in Piazza Mattei, in the Sant'Angelo district of Rome, Italy. It was built between 1580 and 1588 by the architect Giacomo della Porta and the sculptor Taddeo Landini. The bronze turtles around the upper basin, usually attributed either to Gian Lorenzo Bernini or Andrea Sacchi, were added in either 1658 or 1659 when the fountain was restored.
The Fountains of St. Peter's Square are two fountains in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, created by Carlo Maderno (1612–1614) and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1667–1677) to ornament the square in front of St. Peter's Basilica. The older fountain, by Maderno, is on the north side of the square.
The Fountain in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere is a fountain located in the square in front of the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome, Italy. It is believed to be the oldest fountain in Rome, dating back, according to some sources, to the 8th century. The present fountain is the work of Donato Bramante, with later additions by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Carlo Fontana.
Elephant and Obelisk is a statue of an elephant carrying an obelisk, designed by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It was unveiled in 1667 in the Piazza della Minerva in Rome, adjacent to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where it stands today.
The Fountain of the Tritons is a fountain in Rome (Italy), Piazza Bocca della Verità, in front of the basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. This fountain should be distinguished from the similarly named nearby Triton Fountain by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in the Piazza Barberini, with only a single Triton.
Several sculpted busts of Pope Urban VIII were created by the Italian artist Gianlorenzo Bernini, with varying amounts of assistance from other artists in his workshop:
Media related to Fontana delle Api (Rome) at Wikimedia Commons
| Preceded by Villa Madama | Landmarks of Rome Fontana delle Api | Succeeded by Fontana dell'Acqua Felice |
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