Isabella Roser was a sixteenth-century Catalan noble woman of Barcelona who helped Ignatius of Loyola and sponsored him, when, on returning from Jerusalem, the 30-year-old pilgrim wished to start anew his schooling.
[1] In the early 1520s Isabella noticed Ignatius of Loyola while listening to a sermon in the church of Santa Maria del Mar, Barcelona, and was struck by his grave and modest demeanor.
[3] In 1543, Isabella, who had been widowed in 1541, along with two female companions, her lady-in-waiting Francisca Cruyllas, and her friend Lucrezia di Bradine, arrived in Rome and obtained from Pope Paul III to be placed 'under the obedience' of Ignatius.
In 1547, Ignatius successfully petitioned the Pope to have the Society freed for ever from accepting 'nuns or women living in community' under spiritual obedience.
[4] Since around the nineteenth century, some historians have confused the life of Isabella Roser with that of her contemporary and fellow supporter of Loyola, the scholar Isabel de Josa.