The Student: Mind, Body, and Spirit

Our classroom enlivens the mind through the liberal arts, the campus courtyard and the city invigorate the body with physical activity, and the chapel animates the spirit with prayerful meditation and the celebration of the mass. Thus, the Erasmus Collegiate Institute exposes students to an order of the day that extends beyond this program and gives an insight into balancing the demands and desires of their own lives.

These points of focus collaborate to fully address the full scope of the student in mind, in body, and in spirit. The Italians use the term bel composto to describe a work of art that perfectly incorporates architecture, sculpture, and painting. Bel composto literally translates as "beautiful synthesis." The Erasmus Institute recognizes that through the classroom, physical activity, and time reserved for the spirit, a beautiful synthesis can occur in the order of an individual’s day.

A bel composto is recognized to be one of the greatest and rarest feats an artist can accomplish. Bernini’s Cornaro Chapel, set in the transept of the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, is just such a bel composto: the mystic statue of St. Teresa in ecstasy, illumined by the light of a hidden window, is witnessed by stucco frescoes of cardinals and doges and by each pilgrim who approaches the chapel. It is a bel composto for all to behold.

More so in life than in art, such a beautiful balance is difficult to achieve. Through an education that incorporates mind, body, and soul, however, The Erasmus Collegiate Institute hopes to expose students to a synthesis and balance that they can incorporate and reflect upon in relation to their own lives. A beautiful synthesis - a bel composto - one to work at living by, rather than to behold as a spectator.