STANDING ATOP THE MAIN BUILDING’S ROOF are statues symbolizing the spiritual and intellectual aspirations of the university. A creation of the Italian expatriate sculptor Ricardo Francesco Monti, who once taught at the UST College of Architecture and Fine Arts in the early 1950s, the statues were installed between 1949 and 1953.

Above the main doorway of the building is a group of three statues symbolizing the three virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity, also known as Tria Haec (Latin for “These Three”). Facing the building, one sees to the left of the Tria Haec, the statues of Vincent de Beauvais, O.P., St. Augustine, and St. Raymond de Peñafort, O.P. To the right are the philosophers Aristotle, St. Albert the Great, and Plato. On the side facing P. Noval Street are the three great writers of tragedy, Calderon dela Barca, Sophocles, and William Shakespeare. On the opposite side are the statues of great playwrights, Lope de Vega, Aristophanes, and Moliere.