Dome

Detail depicting the left fountain head and bee; "The fountain was erected by Urban VIII [Maffeo Barberini] in the last year of his pontificate (1644) against the corner of a palace where the via Sistian abuts on Piazza Barberini. In 1865 it was removed and the pieces stored till 1915 when it was reconstructed...the upper shell, with the inscription, is part of the original, but the lower is a complete and arbitrary reconstruction. Only the concetto of the double shell, a symbol of life and fertility, with the Barberini bees, survives what must have been a peculiarly concentrated invention of Bernini." p. 230 Source: Blunt, Anthony; Guide to baroque Rome, London ; New York : Granada, 1982 (0246117621) (accessed 12/2/2007)