Class of 1907 Minerva Statue

The first statue on campus was a plaster statue of Minerva, the school’s patron goddess and symbol. That statue was a gift of the Class of 1907 and stood prominently in the entrance hall of the Students’ Building from 1908 to 1950, when the building was razed. The Class of 1907 Minerva statue was a type of plaster sculpture popular in the late 1800s-early 1900s and made from molds taken directly from the original ancient marble statue. The statue from which the cast was taken is known as the Minerva Giustiniani (MC 278), and is located in the Braccio Nuovo of the Musei Capitolini in Rome, Italy. This original statue is a Roman copy of a no longer extant Greek statue of Athena, thought to have been sculpted in the 5th century BC.