The Fountain of the Bees was conceived by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) in 1644 as a public fountain located near the monumental Triton’s fountain. The artist’s imagination, however, gave a service structure, the unusual shape of an open bivalve shell. The lower valva served as a basin, while the other valva, modelled to fit the corner of the building behind, was decorated at the base with three bees (the heraldic symbol of the Pontiff’s family). An inscription recalled the Pope’s intervention in the construction of the fountain and the fountain tower as a "public ornament of the city".
The fountain was dismantled in 1865 for traffic reasons and deposited in the municipal warehouses. Rebuilt between 1915 and 1916, it was placed at the corner of the square.
