St. Albert the Great atop the UST Main Building

LOOK: St. Albert the Great, Patron of Science

Students, faculty, and support staff are familiar with the wooden image of St. Albert the Great outside the Dean's office on the third floor of the UST Main Building. Do you know that there is another image of St. Albert in the same building?

From 1952 to 1953, fifteen (15) tall statues measuring 3.05 m by the Italian sculptor Francesco Monti, who taught in the University’s School of Fine Arts, were installed on the pedestals at the roof deck.

On the right side of the façade of the main building are the images of Aristotle (left), St. Albert the Great (center) and Plato (right). Aristotle and Plato were philosophers in ancient Greece who critically studied matters of ethics, science, politics, and more. While St. Albert defended the complementarity of faith and science, which was regarded as unpopular and rather odd in the late 13th century.

The presence of the College of Science in the Pontifical University of Santo Tomás underscores the legacy of St. Albert the Great, the mentor and friend of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas.