The Fontana delle Api is a fountain located in the Piazza Barberini

Piazza Barberini

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....

 in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 where the piazza meets Via Sistina. It was sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist who worked principally in Rome. He was the leading sculptor of his age and also a prominent architect...

 completed in the April 1644.

It 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

Trough

Trough may refer to:* Trough , the lowest turning point of a business cycle* Trough or manger, a container for animal feed* Watering trough, a receptacle of drinking water for domestic and non-domestic livestock...

 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 Triton Fountain

Triton Fountain

The Triton Fountain is a seventeenth century fountain in Rome, by the well-known Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini...

, or Fontana del Tritone, which Bernini had completed the year before.