In Rome, the story goes that one day the famous and wealthy Barberini family was in trouble. The favorite son, the heir of the family, was dying. The doctors were powerless.
A wild honey miner learned of the grief that had befallen the Barberini family. He came down from the mountains, came to Rome and began to treat the dying man with infusions of herbs on honey and bee venom.
After a while, the heir recovered. From happiness Barberini family did not know how to thank the wild honey miner, but he disappeared unnoticed. No one even recognized his name. Since then, bees have been the heraldic sign of the Barberini family.
In reality, everything must have been different. The fact is that the real name of the Barberini family is Tafani, i.e. gadflies. The status of the family grew, and perhaps the word “gadfly” began to seem to them not respectable enough. The name of the town where they lived – Barberino – became the family name. Harmful and annoying insects were replaced by hard-working bees.
In 1633, the Barberini Palace was built in Rome. And although in 1643 the Triton fountain had already decorated the palace square, on April 6, 1644 Pope Urban VIII Barberini commissioned Lorenzo Bernini to make a project for a drinking fountain.
The work was completed in the shortest possible time. The imagination of the genius architect gave birth not to a banal drinking fountain with old sarcophagi and masks, but a small masterpiece with a capital letter. And he was inspired to this masterpiece by the story of the appearance of the bee on the coat of arms of the Barberini family. In 1644, the Fontana delle Api (Fountain of the Bees), made of Carrara marble, appeared on the square where it joined the Via Felice, differing from other similar creations by its lightness and simplicity of composition.
This fountain fascinates with its shape in the form of an open sea shell. The lower flap serves as a bowl for filling the water, while the upper flap, which is raised, bears the inscription that Pope Urban VIII commissioned the fountain. The shell itself rests on rough stones. Their pristine rough shape emphasizes the graceful lines of the shell. Three small bees perched on the upper leaf release thin jets of crystal clear water through their trunks into the leaf-bowl.
The inscription on the upper leaf of the shell – “Pope Urban VIII built this fountain for the citizens of the city in 1644 on the XXII anniversary of his stay on the papal throne” – literally immediately caused a storm of indignation of the inhabitants of Rome. The fact is that the date was still two months away.
Popular rumor said that Barberini first stole the whole world, and now encroached on time. On the statue of Pasquino, the one in the Piazza Navona, pamphlets appeared ridiculing Urban VIII. His nephew, Cardinal Francesco, sent a stonemason to erase the last unit. Then there was talk of a bad omen. And eight days before the 22nd anniversary of his pontificate, Urban VIII dies.
For more than two hundred years, the fountain served as a drinking fountain, until in 1865 the square underwent drastic changes. The fountain was dismantled and stowed away in the city warehouses because it had become a nuisance to traffic.
It was decided to restore the fountain in 1915. Many fragments were already missing. And the sculptor Adolfo Apolloni was assigned the task of not only resurrecting the Fountain of Bees, but also to do it from a cheaper material – travertine, not white marble, as Bernini had.
In fact, from the former splendor of the original fountain remained only a small central part and fragments of bees. The place was chosen different – quiet, without heavy traffic, on the sidewalk at the beginning of Veneto Street. The grand opening of the renewed fountain took place on January 28, 1916. The restoration took place in 2000.
Not everyone manages to find this small fountain the first time. The corner of Via di San Basilio and Via Vittorio Veneto is the place to go. Here, under the shade of plane trees, you can relax and drink crystal-clear cold water.
In 2004, a vandal from Venice smashed the bee head with a hammer, which was later replaced with a replica. The man turned out to be mentally ill and was not punished, but simply sent for treatment.
