Marit Anderson's Senior Capstone Paper Accepted in the Bowdoin Journal of Art

Marit Anderson graduated with her B.A. in Art History in 2017.  For her senior capstone project, she developed a paper that she had written for Professor Steven Ostrow's Baroque Rome course.  Entitled "The Fontana delle Api: Bees, Bernini, and the Papacy of Urban VIII Barberini," it focused on the Fountain of the Bees, one of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's most delightful, but little-studied, fountains, which was commissioned by Pope Urban VIII.  Delving deeply into the fountain's history and iconography, both as an isolated monument and in relation to its larger counterpart, the Fountain of the Triton, which Bernini also created for Urban VIII and which stands a virtual stone's throw away in Piazza Barberini in Rome, Marit demonstrated that the Fontana delle Api was conceived to make a highly charged political message about the pope's efforts to bring peace to Rome and to the Catholic Church.  

The paper was awarded the prize for being the best senior thesis written in the Fall of 2017, and, most impressively, it has recently been accepted for publication in the Bowdoin Journal of Art. 

Marit will continue her studies in the Fall of 2018 as a graduate student at St. Thomas University in the Art History and Museum Studies program.