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Abstract
The decoration of the vault of the main living room of the Palace Barberini of Rome, entrusted to the painter and architect Pietro da Cortona, is chaired by the Triumph of the Divine Providence, thanks to whose intercession designated to the chair of San Pedro to the noble lineage of the Barberini, represented by the person of Maffeo Barberini, the one who took the name Urbano VIII. Between the allegories and symbols of this pictorial composition distinguishes the shield of arms of the family, recognizable by the symmetrical disposal in shape of equilateral triangle of three bees, a tiara papal and the keys of San Pedro. Urbano VIII was characterized by his diplomatic activity, his ecclesiastical reforms and his artistic patronage. He protected, especially, to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Rome soon knew to recognize in him as the promoter of works like the baldaquino of San Pedro, the Source of the Barcaccia, the Source of the Triton or theSource of the Bees precisely by the presence of this insect in the shield papal. Not in vain, the church was frequently interpreted as a beehive in which the believers and the figures of the clergy were as small laborious and worshipper bees. The honey was, then, a metaphor of the sweetness of the divine world and of the message of Christ.
